The Enemy's Gate is Down
by BuJyo
Summary: The people peripheral to the Avengers are also subject to the whim of their enemies, and not all of them will sit back idly and accept their fate.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:**

**My first Avenger's fic, and one of those stories that jumped into my head from back to front and an OC that wouldn't leave me alone. Wrote a good portion before Ragnarok, then came back around to finish it up. **

**Timeline is a little fluid. Definitely after the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D, and just pretend Age of Ultron never happened **

**I adore Loki, and I wanted to play with him here in a way that he may not expect. Things are not always as they seem, and when you pry things out from under a rock you might get bit. **

**Please enjoy! (psst…reviews are love…you know where the button is)**

"_**The enemy's gate is down."**_

"Bruce, Bruce, Bruce…" Willa mumbled to herself, backspacing for the umpteenth time that afternoon. "Too many words, my friend. Your audience is going to snooze for sure if you toss too much technical jargon around." She tapped her fingertips together as she mentally rearranged paragraphs before her hands settled back on the keyboard. A few minutes of rapid typing and she re-read the edited portion of the lecture to herself. "There we go. Now it's relevant _and_ interesting. You'll be a celebrity in the scientific community."

No one was listening to her commentary, but that never stopped her from entertaining an empty room before. Well, not completely empty, just that its other occupant had quite forgotten she was there a few hours ago, and that was perfectly fine.

Willa enjoyed working weekends in the lab with just Banner. He kept the conversation to a minimum and the speakers full of jazz and blues. Decompression for them both, she was sure, though she didn't have any illusions that either of them were ever fully relaxed. Both had valid reasons to always watch their six, but they had built a solid camaraderie over the years and it helped alleviate potential paranoia. She could actually say she was comfortable around him. They valued each other's intellect and unconventional thinking styles, he trusted her to manage the lab on a daily basis and critique his work, and she trusted him to remain predictable and ever so slightly gullible. Willa smiled. She had heard the word 'adorkable' once…it fit Banner to a T.

He had asked her to edit his latest talk for a large conference in London, slightly apologetic for what he deemed clerical work, and she was more than happy to help. Not only was it a break from some excruciating programming that had been resistant to all her efforts, but it was a chance for her to absorb his latest and greatest advances on some bio-modifications that she didn't want to ask about. This way she could get all the nitty-gritty details and save him from his own marginal writing skills. Speaking of…the stuff she was reading was as dry as the Sahara.

"You write like an uptight scientist," she called out, not expecting an immediate response. Sure enough, he processed her criticism about five minutes later.

"I _am_ a scientist." He managed to look perplexed and slightly annoyed at the same time.

She swiveled around on her chair and stretched her neck. "And your audience already knows that, so you don't need to prove it. We talked about this before. Write your paper like you're writing a menu; an exciting and tangy appetizer, a little house salad with the requisite veggies, then the main course of meat and potatoes with a savory gravy to make sure it's devoured. Of course at the end you can toss in a fun and sweet dessert so that they remember you fondly." He was scratching his head and looking distracted and she snapped her fingers at him to get his attention. "This conference is for the global community, remember? It's not just your little microbian niche. You gotta sell it."

He made a face and she sighed. "Don't make that face. I know you don't have to worry about drumming up funding, but you need people to like you. The more likeable you are the less chance you'll get pestered about Mr. Hyde." She almost felt a little sorry for him when he grimaced, but it was the truth and he knew it.

"I know," he confirmed her thought, turning back to his instruments. "Catch more birds with honey or some nonsense. Never mind that I'm the premier scientific mind in the theoretical biogenetic field…" He trailed off into disgruntled mumbles and Willa snorted in amusement as she spun back around to her desk. Typical male genius, unable to keep even a simple proverb straight. Even she knew that one and English was her second language. Or third. It was hard to remember.

The lab doors swooshed open and she glanced over and groaned. It had been such a nice day.

Stark sauntered in, popping peanuts as he looked around curiously, zooming in on Bruce. "Hey, buddy. I was working downstairs, you know, in _my_ lab, and I remembered that it was Saturday. And there was just something missing. It took me a little while to put my finger on it and then, bam!" Bruce had given no indication that he was even listening to his friend so Tony propped his elbows on the counter across from him, clearly in Bruce's space. "C'mon, Banner, you know it's my turn to have the lab assistant this weekend," Stark scolded. He was quickly distracted by a table next to him and turned to peer at some vials filled with what looked suspiciously like blood. "You're violating the custody agreement again…and what is this?"

Bruce now had his face pressed to a microscope, his rumpled lab coat and mussed hair giving him a mad scientist vibe. "Willa and I are running protein assays this weekend. We're backlogged and I need the results for my conference in two weeks. You can have her the whole time I'm in London." He adjusted a dial and reached over to tap a few keys on his laptop without looking up from his specimen. "Please don't touch anything."

Tony was already fiddling with one of the fluid filled vials and Willa turned her head to watch him carefully, starting a mental timer. He rotated he vial through his fingers, seemingly tracking the bubbles rising to the top. "Protein assays. Right. You know, if you two are playing hide the salami you don't have to keep it a secret. In fact, please don't keep it a secret. I want to know all the details."

Willa snorted quietly in amusement as Bruce jerked to standing. "What? We're not- Why would you say that?"

Tony pointed at Bruce with the vial. "Admit it, Rage Monster, you and Dr. Sneaky have been putting in a lot of overtime during the wee hours and I'm starting to lose some sleep. It's time to fess up."

Managing to look irritated and embarrassed at the same time, Banner tsked at his friend as he moved over to manipulate some diagrams on one of the suspended computer screens. Stark waggled his eyebrows and Bruce sighed. "Do you know how much of my research was still on the S.H.I.E.L.D. computers when they went down?"

Tony shrugged. "Don't care?"

"A lot, okay," Bruce replied, one eye on his calculations. "I've managed to finally retrieve it all from redundant storage, but only because Willa agreed to help me. And I think she only helped me because she was salvaging her own -" Banner had stopped mid-sentence to peer at the other man. "Why are _you_ losing sleep?"

Tony's attention had wandered off while he played with his vial under one of the infrared lamps, but he tuned back in with Banner's question. "Because I'm dying to know, do you turn green when-"

Willa's mental timer had reached a critical value and she stood and cleared her throat loudly. Both men startled slightly, clearly having forgotten she was in the room. "Gentlemen," she scolded, striding towards Stark, who looked wary at her approach. "Though I'm loath to interrupt this fascinating display of proprietary misogyny, I'd just like to take this moment to remind you that I work for neither of you and I only work _here_ because I'm contractually obligated and you have the best toys."

Willa snatched the vial out of Tony's hand and continued a few feet to a small hood, placed the vial inside and slid the door shut quickly. "I don't _assist_ anyone." She looked pointedly at Stark. "Though I seem to babysit quite often."

She crossed her arms and studied both of them, enjoying their discomfort. They both looked like toddlers who weren't quite sure if they were going to be punished. There was a sudden, muffled 'pop' behind her as the vial exploded inside the hood, coating the inside of the window with fluid and pieces of glass. She noted the timing for future trials.

Stark's eyebrows shot up. "Clean up in aisle six."

Banner had fumbled his glasses onto his face and now looked mildly concerned. "Was it supposed to do that?"

"Yes," Willa answered.

"Did I know that?" he asked.

"No," she replied, grinning. Banner mouthed a silent 'oh.'

Tony stuffed his hands into his pockets and backed a few steps away from the table with the rest of the vials as the doors to the lab slid open and Clint strolled in, smiling as he caught sight of Stark and Banner. "Just the people I was looking for."

"Don't touch anything," Tony warned. "Willa's booby trapped the whole place."

Clint froze and looked around nervously. "Really?"

He glanced over at Willa who rolled her eyes and shook her head as she headed back to her desk. Obviously this Saturday was going to go downhill fast. "Don't listen to him, Barton, he's mad because he got caught violating lab safety rule number three."

"Ignore her!" Tony retorted, spinning around to point an accusing finger at the retreating woman. "She's been trying to kill me since she started working here. Now she's got Banner roped into her little scheme."

"How am I -?" Bruce started to protest, then just shrugged with a shake of his head. "Forget it, I'm not taking sides."

Willa sat back down with the beginning of a headache, listening to the men continue their typical banter, glad when, a few minutes later, they were once again absorbed in their own little world and she was off their radar. Stark had opened up a large virtual screen of schematics and Barton seemed quite pleased with what he was being shown. A new modification to his weaponry, she supposed, considering he and Tony had been running trajectory calculations alongside her programs for the last couple of months.

Speaking of calculations, she owed Fury the results on her latest run of tests for his pet project. Well, it was a bit of _her_ pet project, neatly repackaged and inserted into his idea of groundbreaking technology. Fury was a strategic genius and one sharp cookie, but he tended to defer to her when they got down to the nitty gritty scientific details involved on this type of project. He knew he could bypass Stark and come straight to her if he wanted to keep any developments on the down-low, and she'd never reveal his tactics. It was a wary relationship that she had cultivated over many years and she was very aware of the consequences if it were betrayed, though it went against her nature to toe the line completely.

She hadn't survived for this long by being compliant, plus she was just a teeny bit bored, and she was confident her little hobby was invisible to any prying eyes, human or cyber. And it was harmless. Mostly. Just because she planned to ultimately use it as a big, fat bargaining chip to weasel out of her contract didn't mean anyone was going to get hurt. Maybe lose a few million dollars, but that wasn't really her problem. There were limits to her cooperation.

Willa moved around to the other end of the lab from the Avenger group as she worked through a number of tasks, keeping one eyeball on Stark to make sure he wasn't fiddling with more specimens. His idea of the scientific method was to blow it up first, then figure out how it works, and she just knew a little part of his brain was wondering if all those vials were as volatile as the first. They were, and she didn't want to clean up more messes. Nor did she want to draw any more attention to them. That would lead to awkward questions, considering her specialty was supposed to be in integrative software design and quantum statistics. Not really the combo that created exploding bioweapons.

Stark had always been slightly suspicious of her presence in his lab from the get-go, and she was very careful not to fan those flames. They had arm wrestled with the trust issue for years now, both occasionally conceding to small revelations to avert all out war. She imagined Tony only acquiesced to Fury's initial request out of guilt. The official story was that she was one of the displaced scientists from S.H.I.E.L.D. whom they still trusted, and Fury wanted her help to tie Banner and Stark's work together in a format that would allow him, and the Avengers, to rebuild their initiative. Tony argued that they had Jarvis for that, Fury countered that Willa would be solely focused on integrative projects that supported the Avengers, thus freeing up Jarvis for any of Tony's projects. Even she thought that was a little flimsy, but apparently Fury spun it just right for Stark to take the bait.

"_She can work just as well in your lab, Nick. I don't want to babysit." Tony was lying under one of his many cars, tinkering with who-knows-what as Fury stalked about the garage. _

"_My lab looks like a yard sale on a rainy day, Stark," Fury drawled, irritated. "It's going to take months before we can even think of rebuilding sufficient hardware capabilities for decent work, much less the additional time to restore appropriate security levels of software." He strolled over to the windows and looked out over the city. "I have the equivalent of a seventh grade science lab compared to what these people need. And I don't think any of them is going to be satisfied with dissecting frogs."_

"_I loved those frogs." There was a clatter and Stark rolled out from under the car. "I wired one up with a couple of D batteries and a spring one day. Pretty sure Mary Ellen Jobst needed a few years of therapy after that." He was grinning._

_Nick rolled his one good eye. "Your talents were truly unappreciated."_

_Tony wiped his hands on a towel and levered off the floor to grab some water at the sink. "Okay, so say I let this Winnie Marsala - "_

"_Willa Marshall," Nick corrected. "_Doctor _Willa Marshall."_

_Stark waved a hand dismissively while he drank. "Whatever. Say I let her work in my lab and touch my stuff. What's in it for me?"_

"_My undying gratitude?" Fury deadpanned._

"_Already got it," Tony retorted with a shrug. "Aliens, wormhole, died for a few minutes."_

_Fury sighed, his features softening just slightly. "Phil Coulson spoke highly of her so I'd like to keep her onboard. She's loyal, and I hate to waste valuable talent, which may walk if it doesn't have adequate resources." _

_Stark sighed heavily and dropped into a chair. "The Coulson card's a dick move." He rested his head on the back of the seat and seemed to be thinking while drumming his fingers on his knee. Fury waited._

"_Fine," Tony declared, eyes back on Fury. "Three months probationary period and Jarvis gets access to any work she's doing while she's here. It's not that I don't trust you, but I don't trust you."_

_Fury smiled. "I'd be disappointed if you did."_

It had been nearly two years since she first walked through the doors of Stark Tower and she really had no grounds to complain about a damned thing. And if her research continued to progress at the rate it had over the past six months, well…redemption didn't especially interest her but renegotiation had a sweet taste to it. It wasn't that she wanted to leave S.H.I.E.L.D., she just wanted her independence restored. The people she had met since being dragged into the then clandestine agency had made her life more interesting, and some of them, both living and dead, had become her actual friends. And a small group of those, the Avengers, were also integral pieces of her research. It wasn't something she wanted to walk away from, nor did she think Fury would let her. Scratch that. He'd probably let her, and then grin like an idiot when she was arrested ten minutes later. Neither of them had any illusions about who she still was.

Willa glanced up from her laptop and realized Steve and Natasha had joined the men already in the lab, and now the whole group was studying some 3-D floor plans projected into the air while Jarvis droned on a bit about dimensions. It was unusual for all of them to be gathered in one spot and she watched them closely for a few minutes. Strategizing, she realized. Must be some sort of mission on the horizon. That definitely piqued her interest. She needed a change of pace.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Alright. Let's get this party started.**

"…**because if you can't kill then you are always subject to those who can, and nothing and no one will ever save you."**

"Christ on a stick!" Willa exclaimed under her breath. She rested her elbows on the worktable and dropped her head into her hands. "I cannot believe I'm being provoked into an argument with a computer." She blew out a long breath and tried again with measured words, "Jarvis. Run the simulations with the parameters I gave you the first time. I don't want you to introduce any other variables. Just do what I told you to do."

"Yes, Doctor Marshall," Jarvis replied, ever so politely. "Is there anything else you would like to tell me to do?"

She raised her eyes to the ceiling and wondered what sin she had committed in which her punishment was a passive-aggressive AI program. "I have a list. You won't like it."

Jarvis was wisely silent, however she heard Tony snicker from a few feet away and straightened to face him, hands on her hips. "You're to blame for that," she accused.

He batted his eyes innocently. "Moi?"

Willa tossed him a sneer and turned back to her project. "You created a perfectly good AI and then taught him bad habits and loosed him upon the rest of us."

Tony waved a bit of tubing around in the air as he pretended to think. "Hmm. One of the fastest computing times on the planet, spectacular multiphasic acuity, absolutely stunning accuracy and undying loyalty to its creator." He flashed her a grin. "I'm not seeing any bad habits there."

Willa jumped right back in. "Disrespect for authority, car salesmen methodology and ridiculous delusions of grandeur." She saw Romanoff snort and Thor chuckle at her comment.

"I do not know about the car salesman," Thor chimed in, "but the rest is amusing."

"Oh, I'm sure you've met a few." Natasha cast an amused glance at the large man as she continued to work on some notes. "Cheesy marketing, dubious finances, they hardly ever give you a straight answer and you usually end up with a shoddy product."

"Ah yes," Thor exclaimed. "We do have such vendors on Asgard. They are most annoying and are usually fostered off to less desirable worlds."

Natasha glanced over at Tony. "Well, that explains a lot."

"Hey," Tony interrupted. "Who's developing our latest and greatest defense technology here?" He gestured dramatically at the schematics on the screens.

Romanoff pointed her pen towards the other woman in the room. "Actually, Willa seems to be doing most of the work."

"Yes," Thor nodded in agreement. "Lady Willa has been working particularly hard on this project. I have provided her with much information on Asgardian biology recently." He gave a curt bow in Willa's direction and she smiled and winked with a little wave. Thor was ever eager to cooperate when she asked him for information or blood samples. He never questioned her need for them and for that she was glad. She wouldn't go so far as to say he was naïve, more like a privileged puppy.

"Really?" Tony had swiveled back around to peer at her curiously. "Because she wanted blood samples from me and Capsicle just a few days ago. And I vaguely recall a narrowly avoided blood bath in the lab a few weeks ago. Why this sudden interest in biology, Dr. Mengele?"

Willa blinked at him for a minute, hoping she looked more irritated than startled. His insult hit a little too close to home and she had a moment of panic, then realized that was ridiculous. This would hardly be the place he'd confront her with that kind of knowledge.

"Wow," she said cooly, "Do you even _have_ an HR department?" Tony looked unfazed by the challenge and Thor was staring at her now too. Romanoff appeared to be intent on some paperwork, which meant she was probably paying the closest attention. Willa sighed loudly.

"You know very well what I'm doing, Stark. You _always_ know what I'm doing." Her sardonic reply wasn't lost on him

He waggled his eyebrows and gloated. "True, true." Digging a packet of granola out of his pocket, Tony popped a few pieces in his mouth and mumbled around the food, "Explain it to the class please, Dr. Marshall."

Willa bit back a comment and instead smiled tightly at Thor and Nat. "The goal is a revolutionary personal defense system that can ultimately be packaged into nanotechnology. It will have to be personalized down to a nearly DNA level. The only way to get that kind of integrative communication between the hardware and software is to introduce all the biological parameters now, during the coding process." She gestured to all the bits and pieces of equipment in various stages of assembly laying on the table in front of her. "Behold. The macrotechnology has to be loaded with biomarkers before it can be miniaturized. I'm giving these little lovelies mini-transfusions to bring them to artificial life." She gave Stark a pointed look. "More Frankenstein, less Doctor of Death, if you don't mind."

"Plus," a voice from near the delivery bay chimed in, "I asked her to draw blood samples from everyone for another reason. Our personnel files haven't been fully updated since S.H.I.E.L.D. collapsed and I figured it was time we all had a full physical workup." Bruce was maneuvering a dolly with two large boxes on it through Stark's clutter as he entered the work room. He parked it with a grunt and looked over at the group, targeting Thor. "And now that we've had contact with alien species, I need to start additional files. No offense."

Thor shrugged, seemingly unperturbed. Natasha straightened and crossed her arms, thoughtful. "Surely S.H.I.E.L.D. had already gathered plenty of data on the Brothers Asgardian?"

"Surprisingly, no," Bruce answered, walking over to them. "There were always more immediate concerns. Until now."

"And Loki is not Asgardian," Thor added casually. All the other heads in the room swung around to stare at him, surprised. Thor's brow furrowed. "I did not tell you about that?" He shifted uncomfortably as they all shook their heads. "Well, uh, it's complicated. A tale for another day perhaps."

Stark and Banner had a quick eyeball-conversation before Tony held up a hand to Thor. "Hold on. You're going to drop that load into the middle of the room and just leave it there? What do you mean, 'not Asgardian'?"

Thor fidgeted a bit before gracing them all with a boyishly nervous grin. "I believe I had already explained he is adopted. He is also not originally from my world."

Nat stepped forward to pin Thor with a stare. "But he is on Asgard _now_, right? Locked up?"

"Of course," Thor quickly agreed. "Secure in my Father's prisons in a monitored cell."

Thor's exchange with Natasha continued, but Willa quit listening as she was pulled back into memories.

Loki. It was a name she had avoided thinking about for a long time now, and it was hardly welcome back to the forefront of her mind. The Trickster. The God of Mischief. Misnomers, in her opinion. Childish nicknames for a very real monster. She could still smell the rancid smoke of burning equipment in her dreams as the helicarrier canted dangerously sideways and she and the other scientists in the lab frantically grabbed for anything to keep themselves in place. The cacophony of alarms and shouts, and quiet, fervent prayers in the corner right before the wall-

"You all right?" Willa startled as Bruce laid his hand on her shoulder with the question. She blinked up at him, momentarily confused. His brow furrowed. "Willa?"

She shook herself mentally and rolled her shoulders back with an amused snort, dislodging his hand. "Yeah, fine, sorry. I just had an epiphany about this project and totally got lost thinking about it." She scratched the back of her head and glanced past him to see if anyone else had noticed her lapse. Seemed not, as the other three people in the room were now over by the far wall studying a diagram. She looked back at Banner with a shrug. "You know how it can be."

He looked relieved. "Do I ever. I used to miss my bus stop all the time in graduate school because I was stuck in my own head."

"Sing it, brother," she chuckled, then spotted the boxes still sitting on the dolly by the windows. "What's in those?"

Bruce glanced backwards as he walked over to power up his workstation. "Not sure. More of Tony's toys by the looks of them. They were just sitting in receiving like they were going to deliver themselves."

That perked her up. She had been waiting for weeks for some new components for Fury's nanotech project, or Project Kevlar as he called it. The last few composite boards she needed in order to get a batch of the little buggers ready for the first trial run.

"Yes!" she whispered, grabbing a box-cutter off the table and heading over to the boxes. This would probably mean no sleep for weeks, but it would be totally worth it. Forward movement on Fury's project, and some long awaited verification data for her own little hobby. There was no label on either box, so Willa just picked the top one to start with and ran the box cutter along the seam as she tried to decide which project to start on first. There should be plenty of time after she was finished here with the nanobots to go over—

The box suddenly appeared to fold in upon itself and a pillar of shimmering gold light expanded upward and outward and began to coalesce into a shape. Willa snatched her hand back. "What the hell?"

The words were barely out of her mouth when she was jerked backwards, Banner's hand fisted into the back of her t-shirt. He spun her around and unceremoniously tossed her behind an old couch next to the nearest tool bench.

"Stay down!" His voice had deepened into a growl and Willa gaped up at him from her sprawled position as he began to transform. He spun out of sight and a moment later she finally remembered to breathe. The couch totally blocked her view of the action though, and there was no way she was going to lie back here and not know what was going on. Gathering her limbs beneath her, she cautiously stretched her neck to peek over the back of the couch and froze.

"Surprise!" Loki grinned at the Avengers with malicious glee, standing where the package had been just a moment before. He was dressed in a well-cut, dark colored suit, no different than the thousands of New York commuters on the street, but anyone would've picked him out in a crowd. He was a striking figure with his regal posture and piercing eyes, immediately telegraphing 'not from around here.'

Thor flung an arm out, calling to Mjolnir, and one of Tony's gauntlets flew to him from the wall behind her and wrapped around his wrist, but Willa's gaze was fixed on the enormous presence of the Hulk, no more than a few meters in front of her. He was mesmerizing…and terrifying. She had only ever seen video and it did not do him justice, not even close. The huge beast stomped a foot and roared and Willa ducked back behind the couch, hands reflexively over her ears.

"Jesus H. Christ," she whispered, grimacing in pain. Lights danced in front of her eyes. She would never have been prepared for that.

A few moments later, her brain no longer ringing and still unwilling to completely cower, she eased her head out from around the side of the couch, staying low to the ground.

"Casual day in the palace?" Stark quipped. Romanoff was speaking low and quick into her cell phone, hanging back slightly from the main group, eyes glued to Loki.

"How did you escape Father's dungeons?" Thor demanded. His voice seemed to have deepened and all vestiges of boyishness vanished. Willa hadn't seen him this angry before. He had become a _presence_ in the room and she now had a glimpse of what the peoples of old had told stories about.

"Are you not pleased to see me?" Loki purred, extending his arms. "Surely you have a warm embrace for your prodigal kin?" He grinned widely at Thor's deepening glare and dropped his arms. "Do not fret, brother, the AllFather is unaware that I've slipped my bonds. One meets such delightfully rapacious specimens within the dreary deeps of the palace. Seemed silly not to make new friends."

Thor barely gave him time to utter the last word when he launched his hammer. Loki's apparition flickered as Mjolnir traveled through it, the weapon slowing finally to return to Thor's hand.

Loki laughed. "You missed. Again."

Willa shuddered with revulsion and squeezed her eyes shut. The sound of his laughter and the sneer in his voice had triggered more memories she had hoped to forget. She had seen a good number of people die, but there were some deaths burned into your soul. _Let it go, let it be, this is not your fight_. Sucking in a lungful of air with her own reminder, she opened her eyes to watch the continuing train wreck.

Tony dropped his hands. "He's got to be close by to conjure this up." He glared at Thor. "Guess you should've taken out that restraining order, hmm?"

The Hulk stepped forward with a grunt and swiped at the illusion. Loki put his hands up and pretended to duck. "Oh, this is such fun! I really could play all day," he watched his brother march towards the balcony doors, "but I suspect my time here will be limited."

Thor had now stomped out onto the small terrace and was winding up with Mjolnir. He cast a fierce glare in Loki's direction and growled, "You would best hope I do not find you." With that he launched himself into the air.

Loki sighed and hummed with a forlorn look. "I just know he's going to spoil this wonderful reunion. He's never possessed much grace when asked to share his friends. Ah well…"

"What do you want, Loki?" Romanoff demanded. "Did the stink of defeat wear off so quickly that you need to roll in it again?"

Loki speared her with a glare and strode in her direction. The Hulk stepped in front of him but the apparition traveled right through the green beast, only to cause it to spin in a confused circle and grunt angrily. Natasha crossed her arms defiantly and raised an eyebrow. "Some men _are_ gluttons for punishment."

"I could teach you a few things about punishment," Loki hissed.

Natasha's reply was cut off as Steve rushed through the main doors, followed closely by Clint. "Hey!" Steve barked at Loki, "I think it was pretty clear from the last time that you aren't welcome here."

"'Here' being the whole planet," Clint clarified.

Loki stepped back with an apologetic gesture and sly smile, looking around the room. "Now that's more like it. I was hoping everyone would show up."

"Let's get to the point, Jack-in-the-Box," Stark prompted. "I'm tired of looking at you already, and I doubt your brother's going to let you get a word in edgewise once he catches up with you." He winked. "He seemed upset."

Loki straightened his shoulders and easily settled into being the center of attention. He spread his arms wide and slowly rotated, gracing them all with an arrogant smile. "The Universe is made up of gods and beasts. Those who rule and those who must be ruled." He had a adopted the air of a professor instructing a class and began to amble in front of them, clasping his hands behind his back. "I attempted to impress upon you before the obvious nature of my superiority, but you all insisted upon behaving like the beasts you are. Reckless and disobedient, so sure of your purpose without realizing the futility of your own existence. You are but a pitiful and fleeting species, yet you behave as though an entitled child, willful and demanding with no respect for your authorities."

"Somebody's had his panties in a bundle since we kicked his ass all those years ago," Clint interrupted, sharing an amused glance with Tony.

Loki turned and leveled Clint with an icy stare. "I have grown more powerful during my absence. You seem to have only grown…older."

Barton clenched his jaw and seemed ready to reply when Stark jumped in, "It's always a little sad when a has-been starts to relive his glory days. Normally I'd extend an offer to belly up to the bar and toss back a few while we reminisce but…" he grimaced wryly, "you're an unpredictable psychopath with a death wish and I'm still not quite on speaking terms with my insurance company."

The god clasped his hands behind his back and gritted his teeth in a feral smile. "Always the comic relief, my boy. At least you are aware of your sole usefulness."

"All right, that's enough." Steve stepped forward. "Either tell us why you're here or we're leaving. You're wasting our time, and I suspect yours is nearly up."

Loki hiked up an eyebrow, amused. "Of course. It's simple. There are so many worlds and I have not yet conquered even one, but I've found, through experience, that war is the business of barbarians and a waste of time and resources. So I come you with a more civilized challenge, though I doubt you will appreciate the courtesy." He shook his head sadly at them.

"Spill it," Natasha demanded, unimpressed.

Loki sighed heavily, pulled a white glove from his pocket and threw it on the ground in front himself. "A duel to the death…me, against one of you. The winner shall decide the fate of the planet."

There was a stunned and confused silence, then Tony broke into laughter. "This is a joke, right? This has got to be a joke." He peered up at the cameras in the corners. "Is this you, Pepper? Are you still sore about the tiger?"

"I think they've been letting him binge watch The Three Musketeers in his jail cell," Clint drawled.

Willa watched Loki as the others joked and her stomach sank. The being's eyes burned with malice and he slowly clenched his fists. She was very glad they were only witnessing an illusion and not the real thing.

"Enough! You ridiculous morons," Loki barked, immediately silencing the room. "Take me in jest at your mortal peril for I bring you this offer once, and only once. At a time and location that I will reveal to you, one of you will accept my challenge. If you decline, through negligence or cowardice, then I will rain destruction down upon your world with no mercy to any living thing." He was nearly spitting with anger and the weight of his conviction raised the hair on the back of Willa's neck. His eyes raked over each of the Avengers and they all prudently remained silent. "Be watchful for my messengers. I would hate for you to miss your chance to be defeated."

With that the apparition flickered out of existence and the Avengers all stood staring at the lone glove still lying on the floor.

"How does he do that?" Tony mused, perplexed.

Willa rocked back on her haunches and stared at the floor, thinking. Something wasn't quite right. It looked like Loki…sounded like Loki, but the message seemed just a bit…contrived. And slightly familiar.

"Well, hello. Who do we have here?"

The voice sounded right next to her and Willa instinctively lunged away as she realized the speaker. She turned to see Loki hunched down at her level, smiling at her fright. "I don't believe we've met?"

She crabbed backwards until she crashed into a cart full of tools, drawing the attention of the others in the room. Loki's apparition was still smiling as it faded away while Tony jogged over, his look of concern deepening as he saw her face.

"What happened?"

Willa opened her mouth to tell him, then quickly reconsidered. She wasn't going to let Loki rattle her that easily, or at all if she could help it. "I got spooked, that's all. Delayed reaction I guess," she replied instead.

"I kinda forgot you were back there, actually," Tony confessed. He gestured towards the Hulk and Romanoff, now out on the balcony where Natasha seemed to be soothing the creature. "We'll have Banner back pretty soon and after he eats a horse I want you and him working overtime on Project Kevlar. Something tells me we're going to need it." He squinted at her, assessing. "Right. This part is probably a little new to you. I'm going to need you to shake it off, okay?"

Willa nodded silently, still sitting on the floor. Tony offered her a hand and she grabbed it, getting pulled to her feet. "Hey," he said quietly, still holding her in a firm grip. "Fury does not know about this. Not until I say he knows. We don't need that kind of complication."

"Well," she replied, "hopefully Thor doesn't make a scene then. Otherwise the gig is up." Too many people with too many cell phones for that kind of ruckus to go unstreamed. CNN would pick it up in no time.

Tony released her hand and chewed on his lip for a moment, gazing out the window. "Luckily, it's rush hour. On a Friday. No one's likely to notice a sibling beat down in Midtown, right?"

That question was answered twenty minutes later when Thor stomped through the doors looking murderous. Willa couldn't quite tune into the heated conversation across the room as she tapped commands into her laptop. She wanted to download the security cam footage of Loki's visit to review later. Something still bothered her. Raised voices drew her eyes back to the powwow by the door and she caught enough of the conversation to understand that Loki had escaped his brother's search, no one had any idea how to hunt him down, and everyone thought they should be the person to answer the challenge…if there was even going to be such a thing. She sighed. She didn't need this kind of drama.


	3. Chapter 3

"_**I've lived too long with pain. I won't know who I am without it."**_

Willa sank further into the suede couch, readjusting her tablet so she didn't slosh any whiskey onto it with the move. Feet up on the low table in front of her, blanket wrapped around her shoulders, she started to finally feel relaxed and tapped the device to rewind the camera footage once again. The only illumination in the room beyond the low lights over the bar was her small screen and it drew all of her attention. She no longer played it with the sound on, the words she had memorized were now replaced with the low background lullabies of Frank Sinatra. Old Frankie always soothed her when the rest of the world seemed just too much input. He was a douchebag in real life, but his talent created such beauty. They were a bit of kindred souls, her and Sinatra, she thought. It just really depended on how you defined beauty. The footage began to play again and she tilted her head to watch, fast-forwarding a bit here and there. She had been trying to pinpoint a certain moment.

There was a subtle shift in the air, and Willa's eyes snapped up to the entry way, senses alert. She exhaled in relief when she saw Bruce standing there, slightly unsure. She waved him over.

"There's probably enough in the bottle for another glass or two," she offered.

He took the hint and detoured over to the bar to grab the bottle, another glass, and some fresh ice. Pouring himself a generous amount, he freshened hers and then settled back against the other end of the couch.

"I've seen the ending of this one," he teased, nodding at her screen. "Bad guy gets away."

Willa grinned. "Yeah, too bad. I was hoping that big green guy would flatten him."

Bruce froze for a minute, drink halfway to his mouth, then apparently realized she was teasing him back and tossed back half the glass. Grimacing, he set the drink on the table with a long sigh. "Sorry about the couch, Wil. I kind of panicked, I guess. Saw you, saw Loki, and just reacted. It was the quickest way to get you out of harm's way."

She shrugged and granted him a small smile, keeping it light. "No apologies needed, friend. I didn't even know there was a threat. I would definitely be the first one eaten by zombies during the apocalypse."

Bruce chuckled and scratched his cheek in thought. "I think the Other Guy would enjoy smashing zombies."

Willa peered over at him. He seemed tired, and she wondered how much energy was sucked out of him every time he underwent that transformation. How long he remained depleted, and if it was just his body that was tired, or his brain too. "Why do you call him that?" she asked.

Banner looked confused and she clarified. "The Other Guy. You always have and I've wondered. Why don't you call him the Hulk? That seems to be his name, right?" He stared at her as she stared back at him, then he abruptly looked down into his glass and swirled the liquid around. She was patient.

"My grandfather told us to never name the monster inside ourselves. Once you did, it was yours forever and it would never leave." He took another sip of whiskey and rested his elbows on his knees. After a moment he forced a weak laugh. "I guess I don't want to encourage it…him."

"Maybe you should just embrace him," she suggested, just to see what he'd say. The alcohol probably helped him take the question better than he would've sober, she thought. He barely even flinched.

"If I had better control while green..maybe." He looked up at her, hopeful. "I'm working on it."

Willa understood, more than he knew. She gave him a nod of encouragement, downed most of the drink in her glass, then turned her attention back to the video. "So what did Stark and Rogers have to say about today's little visit?" she asked. She knew they were the command branch of the Avengers so figured they would've set the plan.

Sprawling back out against the couch again, Bruce followed her example and set his feet up on the table. "Something seemed a little off, to everyone. Steve pointed out that Loki's ramblings were a hodgepodge of quotes from various historical megalomaniacs and that the only original material was the challenge and his heated warning at the end. The guy's really lost it."

"Steve?" Willa asked with a side-eye.

Bruce rolled his head over to give her a disapproving stare. "You still don't like Rogers?"

She tsked and shook her head. "He's a paladin. Always doing the right thing. It's obnoxious."

His stare lingered on her for a few more moments before he sighed and rubbed his forehead with his fingers. "I don't know why I talk to you."

"I'm the only one who understands your jokes, Einstein. You'd be laughing alone without me." She raised her glass towards him and he grudgingly relented and clinked his against hers. Willa had to chuckle. They drank in silent solidarity for a few minutes, then she scooted over towards him and gestured to her screen.

"Okay, Steve was right about the ramblings. But it's not the words that I've been looking at, it's the body language. Watch Loki during the first part of his little speech." She pointed out a few things as the footage played. "He's relaxed, continuous, almost like he's enjoying himself. Even as the insults flew he remained fluid. But then," she paused the video, looking up at Bruce, "tell me what you see after Nat tells him to get on with it."

She pushed play again and watched Banner watch the footage. The light played across his face and she studied the changing shadows as he concentrated. She could tell when he saw it and smiled. "Tell me."

"His whole posture changed," he replied, slowly, thinking as he spoke. "It was like he was concentrating on the words. He even stood nearly still, lost all his flamboyance. Like he was…" Willa could see him trying to come up with the right words and she jumped in.

"Like he was reciting from a script?" She prodded.

Bruce looked surprised, then concerned. "Yes, that's it. Exactly. Like it was a piece of dialogue he didn't write, but he had to muster through it."

Willa hit the power button on the screen and flopped back against the couch pillow with a long sigh. She was glad Bruce had seen the issue quickly because her brain was getting just a little too fuzzy to go over it again at this point. Sleep seemed like a fine idea.

"He's messing with you all again, Bruce," she muttered. "He's going to snatch you up in some elaborate scheme that he's concocted and you better get out in front of him. Now. Pay attention…or we're all dead."


	4. Chapter 4

"_**Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be."**_

* * *

_It was so dark. She knew her eyes were open, reached up and touched them to make sure. There was no light at all…or sound. Willa panicked and flung her arms wide as she stumbled in a random direction. Why couldn't she see? The floor tilted sharply and she was tossed violently sideways and began to fall. She felt herself screaming, spinning and plummeting in the inky, silent blackness._

"_Willa! Willa…Willa, it's me. Take my hand."_

_The voice was in her head and she tried to find the speaker but her body continued to tumble. "Phil! Help me! I can't see you!" She couldn't hear the words coming out of her own mouth, though her raw throat led her to believe she'd been screaming for a long time. "Where are you?!"_

"_I'm here, Willa. Right here with you. Just take my hand."_

_His voice was so close, so maddeningly close, yet she just could not see him. Flailing again, trying to right herself while falling, she finally made out a dim light. It was right below her and a surge of hope rushed through her. "I see you!"_

"_Yes! Grab my hand, I'm going to save you!"_

_Hope was suddenly replaced with dread and Willa felt herself begin to slow. _

_"No! No, Phil, don't! I don't want you to save me. You have to save yourself!" She could see him now, within the glow, and she tried to change her direction as she continued to drift towards him. _

"_Of course I have to save you, that's the mission. I always complete the mission. It's in my nature." He reached out and she pulled her arms back in desperation. She knew she couldn't touch him, just knew that it would lead to agony, but she couldn't stop._

"_Please don't," she pleaded. "Please don't do this!"_

_His hands clasped around her arms and she wailed in pain, both from the intense cold of his grip and the sharp stab of grief that lanced through her heart. His fingers tightened even more while his face remained expressionless, and Willa struggled to get away as her arms grew heavy and leaden. The numbness began to seep into her shoulders and neck as Phil's visage began to melt and distort. _

"_Let me go! You have to let me go!" It began to become difficult to move at all and Willa watched in fear as a new face morphed into existence right before her. She put all her energy into one last struggle to escape as he spoke._

"_Well, hello. Who do we have here?"_

Willa woke with a gasp as she tumbled out of the bed onto the floor in a spectacular tangle of bedclothes. She flung them all off in residual panic and then called out for the lights, sucking in deep breaths of air while they flickered on and her eyes darted around to assure herself she was alone in her own home. A small streak of black startled her for a moment until she realized it was just Valentine. She must've scared the cat during her nightmare and it now crouched beneath a chair and eyed her sullenly.

"I don't blame you, cat," she mumbled, taking stock of her own sweaty, trembling form there on the floor. "That was not pretty." Her fingers still tingled, residual from the dream or from sleeping on them wrong, she wasn't sure, but she wobbled to her feet and slowly stretched to remove the kinks and lingering sense of…wrongness.

It was the third nightmare in two weeks and it needed to stop. She had never been particularly prone to nightmares, despite all she had done, but there were occasional points in her life when the stress level would peak and her brain would no longer compartmentalize. It released all that trapped emotion into her dreams then, chasing her out of her bed and depriving her of rest. How long it would continue was anyone's guess, but she suspected they'd get worse before they got better.

Willa padded into the bathroom to pee and splash her face with cold water. Her throat seemed parched and she wondered if she had been calling out in her sleep. Filling a cup with water, she stared at herself in the mirror as she slowly drank, looking at her image as though she were a stranger. Her ancestry graced her with gentle aging, but even she could see a few extra wrinkles around the eyes recently and she resented the cause of it.

A good portion of her life was spent actively avoiding emotional attachment to people for a number of valid reasons, the main one being the freedom to walk away from anything at any time, but since she'd been trapped into this contract she had let her guard down occasionally and become emotionally invested. And so far it had proven a disaster. Death, destruction and threats, all leveled at the people and organization she worked for, had left her bereft and grieving more in the last four years than in the first forty. And now…

She slammed the cup down with a huff of frustration and strode back into the bedroom. That's got to be it, she told herself, searching through her drawers for a fresh t-shirt. The reappearance of Loki and the renewed threat of mass planetary destruction must've just triggered shelved memories for her idle, sleeping brain to prey upon. Morphing one of her best friends into one of her most hated enemies seemed particularly cruel, though, even for the unstable subconscious. Maybe the arrival of Loki's first messenger yesterday caused that twist of the knife into her wound.

Sliding on a pair of rumpled jeans, Willa started to think about her dream again. Was there anything there she was missing? Or was it just dream? She slipped on some shoes and put in her requisite earrings, then went back into the bathroom to quickly brush her hair and teeth before wandering into the kitchen. Obviously, going back to sleep wasn't an option at this point, so she planned to head up to the lab instead. It would be quiet at this time of morning and there were a few things she wanted to poke into that were better accessed without a chance of prying eyes. She needed to get ahold of the glove that Loki left behind and see what she could pull off of that too.

The Keurig rumbled to life as she made a quick cup of coffee and she stared out the kitchen window as she waited. Her reflection stared back, but the blur of city lights beyond trapped her gaze and memories again. Loki and Phil Coulson. The two couldn't be more different. Opposite ends of the spectrum on everything but intellect, and even that seemed affected by motivation. She had watched videos of both during Loki's brief stay on the helicarrier, more times than was healthy, trying desperately to make sense of Phil's death, but the only thing she realized was that they had lost before they had begun. And she was terrified that they were on the same path again today.

Valentine pulled her out of her reverie with a meowed chirp, questioning the empty state of her bowl. Willa relented to feeding the critter a little early since coffee time was usually food time for kitties and Valentine couldn't tell time. Giving the cat a quick scratch behind the ears, Willa grabbed her sweatshirt from the back of one of the chairs and headed out the door to the large hallway in the residential portion of Stark Tower. There were more than a few employees with apartments and small condos on the first few floors, and she appreciated the space. Given the location of the building, she would've been hard pressed to find anything affordable within a 30 minute commute, and she wasn't necessarily keen on meeting any new people. The price was more than fair given the obvious conveniences; safety, avoidance of the elements, and the three minute elevator ride to work.

_-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-_

Willa keyed the bio-lock into the lab and was immediately greeted by Jarvis as the lights flickered on.

"Good morning, Dr. Marshall. Though barely. What brings you to work so early?"

The mail hadn't yet been sorted, so Willa grabbed that off the cart and slowly scanned it as she walked around to her desk. "Lots to do, Jarvis. I don't like wasting time. The world might be ending in a few weeks, in case you forgot." A number of university seminar invites for Bruce, the usual everyday junk mail, and one envelope for her with a California return address. Probably an invoice for some tech gear. Stark didn't pay for everything.

"Five weeks, six days and 21 hours, actually," Jarvis dutifully replied. "I do hope that gives you enough time to complete a working interface for Project Kevlar."

Willa winced and tossed the pile of mail on another table. "I was actually looking for a little commiseration and encouragement there, Jarvis. Not a verbal doomsday clock. Nor a reminder that we even _have_ this ridiculous countdown."

"Ah, I see," he answered. "I was avoiding presuming any interpretation outside your obvious statement."

She was about to sit, but instead turned slowly around to peer at one of the cameras in the corner. "Really? Petulant bot? That's the look you chose this morning?" There was no answer, and if ever a computer could've pulled off frosty silence, this was it. Willa leaned a hip against a counter and sighed. "Look, I apologize for snapping at you the other day. Truly. I do need your help and you're the only one who does things the way I like them."

"I accept your apology, Dr. Marshall. And thank you. Where shall we start today?"

_Jeeeezuz_…Willa thought. Either Jarvis' self-awareness programs were starting to study teenagers, or Stark was leaving his TV tuned to Real Housewives. Well, either way, maybe it was good to be reminded that Jarvis _could_ think for himself…itself. She wasn't really fond of surprises.

She pursed her lips in thought, silently prioritizing. "First, I'd really like to take a look at the glove Loki left behind." Willa keyed on a number of instruments and entered the passcode to start up the main lab computers. "Stark had done some preliminary runs on its properties, I think."

"Yes," Jarvis agreed. "Mr. Stark did determine that the glove was terrestrial, could be purchased at a large number of stores just here in the city, and also available at multiple sites online. He determined there was nothing unique that could help us locate Loki."

"Right," Willa replied. "But he only analyzed the physical properties of the glove, correct?"

"That is correct, Dr. Marshall. He was planning to give it to Dr. Banner to analyze further." Willa nodded silently as she pulled her personal laptop out of her bag and flipped it open. She was going to need a few programs that weren't stored in the mainframe. Rummaging through the memory sticks piled in a drawer, she grabbed the one she wanted and inserted it into the device. Jarvis, as always, noticed.

"I still wish you would allow me to enhance your laptop, Dr. Marshall." Jarvis would never be overtly nosy and his thinly disguised offer always made her smile. "I believe I would not only be able to increase the computational speed of your programs, but if I had access to your drive I could also suggest future upgrades before you need them."

_I just bet you could, buddy_, she thought. It must stick in his little electronic craw that he couldn't hack into her seemingly puny laptop. He also must wonder why, but even after two years he'd never been so bold to ask. Her reply was her standard. "Like I've said, Nosy Nelly, there's nothing on here that's not on the mainframe, so upgrades aren't really a priority. I use it for redundant storage. Sometimes I like to rerun simulations at home in my slippers." She looked up at one of the cameras and winked. "Unless you're just dying to read my compilation of romance novels or watch some porn?"

The virtual embarrassed silence amused her. She thought not. Willa straightened and looked around the room. All up and running, it seemed. She rubbed her hands together with a grin. "Well, we're set. Let's go get that glove."

Two and a half hours later, as the skies outside grayed with dawn, Willa was overcome by a loud yawn and stood up from her desk to stretch. With Jarvis' help, she had managed to isolate a very small sample of organic material on the glove that she suspected belonged to Loki himself. Assuming no one else had handled it. It was a bit of a long shot, but now she could run the sample through a rigorous variety of tests in the hopes that it would give up all its secrets. Thor's revelation regarding Loki's ancestry still intrigued her, and having two alien biological profiles in her database had to be better than just one. Her sleepless night was beginning to catch up with her though, and it was a good time to break for some food.

"I did purchase the pair. I'm sure I could present its mate to you if that would assist your studies."

For the second time in as many weeks, Willa found herself frantically scrambling away from a malicious smirk that haunted her dreams. She knocked a number of items onto the floor in her haste to scuttle around to the other side of the lab table from the figure that had appeared. Her heart beat staccato, she wasn't sure she was actually breathing, and her rational mind was trying to get her attention.

Loki's smile deepened as he watched her frightened antics, not moving from the spot where he had spoken. His lack of pursuit convinced her to finally stand her ground, and as flight faded back into just fear, she had a realization. He couldn't have gotten into the lab…not as a real entity. She was certain of that.

"Dr. Marshall, shall I alert Mr. Stark?" Jarvis asked.

_Of course you should alert Mr. Stark, you idiot machine! _Her mind screamed, but as she opened her mouth to speak she remembered something that changed her mind. "Hold on a minute," she squeaked, reaching out to feel around on the table in front of her without taking her eyes off Loki. Her hand found a stray instrument, and as Loki raised one eyebrow quizzically, Willa lobbed it at him.

It passed cleanly through the apparition and landed across the lab with a clatter, and Willa gripped the edge of the table, very happy it was there to support her as her legs became a bit wobbly. Another game, it seemed. Relief was quickly replaced with anger and she straightened her shoulders with resolve.

"You don't need to alert anyone, Jarvis." She met Loki's gaze with defiance. "Let them be. This isn't important."

Loki's grin faded to a poorly affected pout and he shifted his shoulders in his suitcoat. "You think to insult me, and we've barely just met. Maybe I wore the wrong suit?"

"I'll just swipe left and you can just move along," she replied, unamused. "I'm not going to call anyone to come see you, and I'm not a secretary to take messages, so maybe come back during normal working hours?" Willa really could not come up with a logical reason for this pseudo-visit, and trying to interpret illogical gods was far outside her pay grade, so she decided to just not play along.

"Jarvis, please activate the privacy protocol," she instructed.

"Is that wise, Dr. Marshall? I should ask Mr. -"

"You're aware of my security clearance, Jarvis," Willa interrupted. "Do it now, please."

"Consider it done," he replied. Willa waited a moment to be sure Jarvis was gone before slowly walking back over to her computer, Loki continually in her peripheral view. He watched her quietly for a few minutes and the overall silence stretched on. She pretended to be reading some results on her screen. Loki took a moment to wander about her portion of the lab, peering curiously into some beakers and the sinks. He passed by the rats' cages and paused. "Oh my. This seems to have gone poorly."

Willa glanced up and saw the small bodies in the cage and quirked her lip. "Actually, that went exactly as planned."

Her response made him smile widely and she immediately regretted overcoming her initial urge to flee the lab for the safety of somewhere else. _Stop it_, she mentally chastised herself. _You've been in worse spots_. True as that may be, the person who survived those events had been buried deeply and didn't need to be dug out. She just had to wait him out. He'd lose interest soon…or…

"Aren't you just a little curious as to why I'm here right now?" Loki asked, and Willa inwardly grinned. He wasn't one to be ignored.

"No." Short, sweet, and frustrating to a narcissist who was hoping for some attention.

"You're a liar, Willa Marshall," Loki purred, sliding back into her range of view. Willa clenched her hands into fists over her keyboard. He knew her name. He noticed her reaction and leaned in a little closer. "_Doctor_ Willa Marshall, of course. Forgive me for my familiarity. The title is important, I think, considering how often it appears in Stark Industries journals and press releases." He pretended to open a newspaper and read the headlines. "Mr. Stark, Dr. Banner and Dr. Marshall announce the newest planet saving technology…hereto and henceforth…blah blah blah." He rolled his eyes and then seemed to lean his elbow on the table across from her.

"You're important to them." The quiet words carried a threat and Willa's blood suddenly ran cold. She drew in a slow breath to remain calm.

"I'm one of many scientists involved in Stark Technologies. My specialties just happen to align with current projects. No more important than the next brilliant mind." She continued to type, but the words were nonsense.

"Not even a very _good_ liar," he said with a 'tsk.' "The question is, shall I make you my next messenger? Or should I save you for something more interesting?"

Willa's fingers stilled as she took a long, slow deep breath. She raised her eyes to Loki's and gave him an emotionless stare. "You're going to kill me with a hologram? That would be a neat trick." Loki's first messenger was one of Tony's drivers. Left dead in the lobby with an envelope safety-pinned to his chest. Willa felt a long closed door in the depths of her soul open a crack and she didn't mind as much as she thought she would. She was done playing mind games with this creature. "Why don't you come back when you think of the something more interesting?"

Loki, as expected, didn't take the bait. If anything, he looked slightly pleased with her peevishness. He stood and smugly tucked his hands in his pockets. "Loyalty is such an interesting concept. Betrayal is implied, the only question is 'when?'"

"Yes," Willa drawled, adopting her own casual stance. "I hear you're quite adept in the subject." He just smiled and she sighed. "Well. This was less than enlightening and now I'm leaving. You're much more compelling in the stories." She walked towards the door and refused to look at him.

"I will find out who you are and what you fear." Loki's shot at her back stopped her cold. "What will they do when you turn against them, I wonder? They will have to choose whether to save you or save themselves, and murder is easily justified as collateral damage once trust is lost."

She didn't turn around. Began to understand the game. "Cheating once again?"

"I do not need to cheat," he said. "I prefer to improvise. It amuses me. And you're going to help me."

Willa spun around then only to find that he had vanished. Denying her even a rudimentary follow up question. Not even a satisfying after-stench to mark his passage. _What a bastard_.

She blew out a long breath and collapsed onto the nearest stool with her head in her hands, realizing she felt more anger than fear, and that was encouraging. There was no way on god's green earth she was going to get entangled in Loki's twisted playbook, and she couldn't decide if she was disappointed or relieved to know her suspicions of his deception were now proved. _What _was_ his game?_

He was clever enough to sow suspicion amongst the team, but he had used that tactic during the last round and Loki wasn't one to trifle with the same game twice. Baiting her? Sure. In the hopes of…what?

Her hands still trembled a bit. Odd that this being could rattle her so much, especially after all these years. Maybe it was actually the time that had passed that was the issue. She'd grown comfortable in the safety and security of S.H.I.E.L.D. and old instincts were a bit rusty. In a way, that bothered her.

She needed more information. Much more information…and she knew the best person to give it to her. Confusion began to give way to resolve, and Willa sat up to regroup.

A soft chime sounded and drew her attention. A reminder that the privacy protocol was still active. _Right_, Willa said to herself. _Here and now and work to do_. She needed to make sure the team was absolutely focused and avoid introducing distractions. The Avengers needed a winning strategy and her only role was to provide them with the best technical solutions on the planet. There was no time for personal agendas, no time to ruminate on past horrors, and certainly no time to discuss early morning visits from the enemy. No one needed to know Loki had been here.

She stood and walked over to press the button to deactivate the privacy parameters, then headed out the doors to actually get some breakfast.


	5. Chapter 5

"_**There is no teacher but the enemy. No one but the enemy will tell you what the enemy is going to do. No one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. Only the enemy shows you where you are weak. Only the enemy tells you where he is strong. And the rules of the game are what you can do to him and what you can stop him from doing to you."**_

* * *

The second messenger was delivered two weeks and 5 hours from the first.

A security guard, dead in his chair in front of the monitors, note safety pinned to his back. No one saw anything. The man had been in Stark's employ for more than 20 years and Tony was shaken. Everyone else was either silent or angry…likely a little bit of both.

Willa was pensive, silent and a million miles away in her corner of Banner's lab as the team slowly gathered near the doors to discuss the newest information. Dates and locations were the least of her worries for the time being as she was more concerned with this final test run for Project Kevlar. The nanobots were perfect and the theory was sound…there really was no problem, but she remained uneasy about the whole purpose of the thing and insisted on one more virtual test. Her gut was screaming at her that they were barking up the wrong tree with their plan and that Project Kevlar was like putting lipstick on a pig.

Feelings of impending doom always gave her a headache, and so she'd been up most nights formulating options B, C, D and right out to the end of the alphabet. So many nested if-thens…and trying to convince Tony and Steve to plan for the unexpected only digressed into arguments between the two as to who needed to be the hero. It was exhausting. She felt like Cassandra in a bad comic book.

Then, a week ago, she stood in the middle of her bedroom at 3 a.m. and made a decision; at least one of the backups would be good to go. As backup plans went it resulted in absurd collateral damage, however, assurance of victory if she could work out the details for implementation. She felt a little tingle of excitement as she dug the portable drives out of the bottom of her drawer. It had been far too long since she had indulged in thinking about tactically deploying her pet project, both because of time constraints and the restrictions placed upon her research, but the little side jobs she'd been pursuing these last few years were just leading up to this anyway. Might as well put the polishing touches on it and flip the proverbial switch. There was 99% chance no one but her would ever know about it. The 1% chance they would…well, that much shit hitting the fan could cover a few counties.

She wanted to tell Bruce about it…Tony too, if she really was honest with herself. It was a work of genius. Beautiful in its complexity and complete lack of compassion. If she closed her eyes she could imagine the results with almost a technicolor clarity and a thrill she had almost forgotten she could feel. There was nothing like it. The pleasure of relating the process and details of discovery with those who could understand it would be so sweet. So…

A rush of cool air brought her back to the present as Tony entered the lab, looking drawn and more than slightly perturbed. Willa's fingers gently caressed the drives lying on the counter next to her PC. She stared at Tony for a few more moments.

He had prodded and probed at her life and background incessantly when she first showed up in his lab and she had actually worried for a while that Fury's cover story wouldn't hold. It had, though barely. She remembered the days of keeping one eye on her personnel files and booby trapping her apartment just in case.

"_Can I help you find anything in particular in my personal files, or were you just bored and looking for entertainment?" Willa tossed the question at Stark as he entered the kitchen, raising her eyebrows over her fork full of salad._

_Tony microscopically missed a step, then recovered with his own eyebrow waggle and a pointed finger. "Is there a reason you feel you need a tracking program on said files?"_

_Willa spoke around a mouthful, "Looking at it."_

"_Yeah, well, I still feel a bit like you're rummaging around in my underwear drawer when you're in my lab," he fired back "Sneaky." He grabbed his lunch from the fridge and leaned back against the counter to stare at her._

_Willa crinkled her nose. "Nobody wants to rummage in your drawers, Stark."_

"_Pepper does," he replied with a wink. "Though she's usually looking for my car keys, which I tend to lose, but anyway…" He stared harder. "I'm really just wondering why the nice Marshall family from Cape Girardeau, who were all born and all died in the quaint little river town, mysteriously acquired a long lost daughter about the same time you started working for S.H.I.E.L.D."_

_The salad she'd been enjoying suddenly tasted like chalk. _Damnit. Don't react, Wil, he's fishing, and you're a better liar._ Willa put her fork down carefully, set an elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand with a sweet smile._

"_Let me tell you a story, darlin'," she began. "There was once an over curious scientist who went poking his nose into business he had no business in. See, this scientist thought he was being clever and protecting himself from some perceived threat, but no…he was just arrogant and twitchy. But all that poking around did get him something." Willa watched Tony's face get stony. Good. _

"_He got a visit from a pair of U.S. Marshals who were __**not**__ very happy about his searches butting up against their security measures. They wanted to confiscate a whole bunch of his computers and start a government investigation into his accounts and stuff. It was really, really messy."_

_Stark's face took on an element of alarm and Willa could breathe a little easier. Let him chew on that a little bit…should keep him on a leash for a while at least. _

"_We all have ghosts, Stark," she said, giving him a small smile. "You_, _of all people, should know that when you build your life on top of death you really shouldn't disturb the graves."_

He had given up his efforts after that as far as she knew, though the tracking programs remained in place. And she had never mentioned it again. However, the fragile trust between them was just that…thin ice that should not be tested. No. She couldn't tell him.

Willa tucked the drives slightly under her computer and turned to walk over closer to the group to pick up the conversation. She wanted to update them on the next step to install Project Kevlar. She also wanted to find out if they had begun to really think outside the box as of yet.

Bruce saw her approach. "Hey Willa, how close are we?"

She knew they were all waiting to hear her results. "We're ready as we can be." She gestured at a collection of small tubes nestled inside a padded box. "Bruce has the serums fully primed and ready to be delivered, and, once activated, my programs will keep the nanobots potent for 48 hours. After that the body's normal defenses neutralize them and they're just absorbed or eliminated." She shrugged, "I wish the effects would last longer, but we didn't have time to tweak that."

Natasha looked dubious. "And how, exactly, is it delivered?"

Clint grunted his inclusion in the question and Willa wasn't surprised. The two non-enhanced beings were appropriately wary of any body modifications they were unfamiliar with. Too used to being fully trained in all weaponry and natural ability.

Banner stepped over to take out one of the small glass tubes and held it up for them to see. The liquid inside was a pale amber color. "Simple injection into a large vessel." He pointed at himself for demonstration, "Neck or groin. Your choice."

Clint grimaced, "Yeah, that's what I thought. It's gonna hurt. Why does it always have to hurt?"

Natasha side-eyed him with a pursed smile. "Baby."

"So," Steve said matter-of-factly, arms crossed, "we're set to go. Injections 24 hours prior to Loki's arrival for peak potential." He looked around at his teammates who all seemed agreeable and slightly relieved.

Willa was appalled.

"Really?" She questioned, loudly, happy to see them all look at her with interest. "You all really think that's it? **That's **going to save you?"

"Well," Tony drew the word out, looking perplexed, "that was kind of the whole idea of your dream team super serum, wasn't it? I mean, we spent a couple million dollars on it, so I'm hoping it's packing more than just a suitcase."

Willa closed her eyes for a moment of calm, then snatched the vial from Banner and held it up front of her. "This," she said, slowly and clearly, "will keep you in one piece for a long time. That's all it does. Fantastic for outlasting and defeating mere mortals…only keeps Loki from ripping the stuffing out of his play toy for just a little longer."

"And we have a combat strategy that incorporates that very idea," Steve replied. "I know you haven't been briefed on the whole plan yet. It'll work."

"It's quite the impressive strategy," Thor chimed in, likely trying to reassure her.

Willa didn't know whether to cry or punch them all in the face. They were clinging to this misguided belief that this contest…duel…whatever they were calling it, was going to be in any way straightforward, least of all, fair. She dropped her hand down to her side and asked a question.

"Does your strategy involve putting a bullet through his head?"

"I'm sorry, what?" Stark asked, startled.

Willa turned to look hard at him. "If your cunning plan involves ambushing him and putting a bullet through his skull before he gets started, then it might work. Otherwise…" she shrugged helplessly.

Bruce looked slightly appalled, Thor shifted angrily, and Clint muttered agreement before Nat's elbow in his ribs shut him up. Tony, however, tilted his head slyly. "Do tell," he prompted.

"I've been telling you for a week!" Willa snapped. "You know very well he's already outthought you. And he'll cheat. So end it before it starts. Because otherwise you're going to lose." She transferred her glare to Rogers. "Despite Captain Naïve's pep talk."

Steve stepped forward with a hand out, speaking to her as though she was a nervous child. "Okay, okay, I see where this is going. I see you're concerned, which seems reasonable given the stakes. And I know you don't think we're prepared for plan B, but you're wrong. We've reviewed all the data from Loki's first attack, we've calculated more scenarios that I want to think about, and we've checked and double checked all the variables moving forward. It's going to work, Willa," he smiled at her. "It'll work."

His cell phone rang just then, as Willa stared back at him, and he gave her another quick smile as he pulled the device from his pocket, walking swiftly out of the lab to take the call, gesturing for Clint and Natasha to follow. The door slid shut on the trio, leaving a silence to gather around the participants left standing.

"I will not kill my brother in cold blood," Thor stated, obviously not having moved on from Willa's suggestion.

She snorted and tossed the vial back to Bruce, who tried not to fumble it.

"Why not? He wouldn't offer you the same consideration." Thor glared a bit and she didn't care. "It seems he's usually trying to kill you most of the time." She had recently been mining Thor for information about his brother, and the stories the big man told her were both fascinating and grim. Centuries of resentment. An arsenal of background information for her, though.

"In fact," she continued, gathering up a few sticky-notes as she headed back to her computer, "he's probably planning on some way to make this particularly painful for you by manipulating your loyalties."

"He'll play the 'poor little baby brother' card and see if you go belly up." Bruce was shaking his head 'no' at her with a concerned frown. Tony had leaned back against table to observe.

"You know little of my loyalties, nor of my convictions," Thor growled, clearly now irritated with the direction of the conversation and beginning to loom.

Willa pivoted to approach the big man, itching for a fight since she was already aggravated. Her words were sharp and clipped. "When are you going to get the memo that your brother is not..a…nice…guy? He's not misguided, Thor, he's a monster."

"All right, let's…stop," Bruce interjected, sliding himself between Willa and Thor nervously. "We're all a little bit on edge and I think I don't need this kind of energy in here." His hand wringing was loud and he sent her a pleading glance.

She stared at him for a moment, then rolled her eyes and veered away, again intent to retreat to her corner. Bruce was probably right, and the only one she'd acquiesce to, **and** the argument wasn't going to be resolved today. Picking a fight with a god should probably **not **be on her things do this afternoon. Though her original question had been answered; no box had been breached.

_You know what Cassandra should've done?_ She asked herself. _She should've kept her mouth shut and burned the damned horse herself._

"Doctor Marshall?" Jarvis asked.

"Yes?" she replied, distracted, almost back to her desk.

"Did Loki give you any ideas as to his plan when he visited you in the lab a few weeks ago? The visit you did not record."

She froze in her tracks.

_Oh, that was it. That damned machine was going to suffer for this._ "We're going to have to have a refresher course on NDA's, buddy," she hissed.

She still had her back to the lab, but she could feel three pairs of eyes drilling holes in her back during the ensuing silence. Rolling her lips between her teeth, Willa waited for the onslaught.

"Pull up a chair, children," Tony drawled, unamused. "It seems it's story time."

"Are you insane?" Bruce was at her shoulder, angrily concerned. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Thor just grunted and crossed his arms with a sniff. Still brooding.

"It was just a hologram, like the first time," she spoke to Bruce, trying to wave off his concerns. He would fret about this more than she liked to think about. "There was absolutely zero danger. It was a trivial attempt to scare me and a juvenile cry for attention. It didn't deserve a retelling."

Bruce actually placed his hands on her shoulders and leaned in closer, face etched with worry now. "How did he even know about you? **What** did he know about you?" His grip tightened fractionally with each question.

"If you kiss her I'm staying," Tony announced, unable to resist a quip despite the mood.

Willa pushed at Bruce with a sigh. "Back off, Banner. I'm a big girl. Been taking care of myself for a long time. A bully is a bully, no matter what world he comes from, and I've dealt with worse."

"I find that hard to believe," Thor responded. "Loki is not to be trifled with. He is frightening when he means to be."

"He's frightening a million miles away supposedly incarcerated," Stark quipped, sliding a reproachful glance to Thor. "But that's not really what I'm mad about right now." He stopped, placed a finger on his lips as if deep in thought. "Okay, I'm still a little mad about that too."

Thor started to respond and Tony cut him off, "Not now, your Hammer-ness," he turned back to Willa. "Right now I just want the answer to one question; whose side are you on, Miss Marshall?"

"Why would you even ask her that?" Bruce quickly protested. Tony waved him off, keeping his eyes glued on Willa.

"She's been twitchy for a little while now, and even sneakier," Stark explained, now walking slowly towards he with crossed arms. "My suspicious nature comes in handy sometimes."

He now stood a few feet from her and they eyed each other warily. "Why keep Loki's visit a secret?" he continued, rapid fire. "Why not tell us right away? What did he say? Was there a plan? Why is she so sure he's going to cheat? Why was the conversation not recorded? Inquiring minds are inquiring." He raised his eyebrows, waiting for her response. "Tick-tock, my dear."

Loki's threats were still slithering around in her brain and she briefly appreciated the madman's genius. Sure, he'd manipulated the pieces on this game board before so the outcome of each move was fairly predictable, but she was still a bit surprised how quickly the mood had shifted. Even Bruce was now looking at her expectantly, chewing on a thumbnail and unsure. She pursed her lips and deflected.

"He told me you'd act exactly the way you're acting." Tony's eyes flashed in irritation at the side step.

Willa took a deep breath and returned to her desk, looking back at Stark. "You know, a while ago I would've stood here and tried to get you to believe me. But that time's long past. Now, I really don't care what you choose to believe." She sat down hard in her chair and proceeded to ignore the peanut gallery.

"I'm on the same side I've always been on," she stated tiredly.


	6. Chapter 6

"_**I don't care if I pass your test, I don't care if I follow your rules. If you can cheat, so can I. I won't let you beat me unfairly - I'll beat you unfairly first."**_

* * *

Willa sat back in her chair, closed her eyes, and let the sun fall onto her face. It was a spectacular Indian Summer day, and she took the opportunity to vacate the lab for lunch on the restaurant balcony on the 27th floor. The warm breeze soothed her, and if she looked straight up she could see the odd angles of the Stark tower jut interestingly into the clear, midday sky. A flock of geese flew over in precise formation far above, silent in their mission to prepare for winter, crossing visual paths with the contrails of a jetliner ferrying humans on similar missions. Escape. Pleasure. Maybe just moving around because they could.

She recalled a time when her movements were her own. When she didn't feel just slightly imprisoned within someone else's paradigm. She couldn't say it was necessarily a better time…or a safer time, but it was fully purpose driven by her own wants and needs.

With a little huff, she sat back up and reached for her coffee. In actuality, she could buy a ticket to Fiji today and be lounging on a beach outside of Latoka by tomorrow. No one would protest her travel, no black suited G-men would haul her out of the TSA line. But she knew Fury would know exactly where she was at any time. It was explained quite clearly.

"_You're an asset, Dr. Marshall. An asset we were extremely lucky to acquire." That one good eye rolled over to pin her with a look. "I might even say you were expensive."_

"_Modern day slavery?" she drawled, unimpressed._

_He shrugged a shoulder. "You can sit in your apartment and eat bon-bons all day for all I fucking care. I don't need you to work for _me_, I just need you to not work for anyone else."_

_Willa narrowed her eyes at him. "Why do I feel like a neutered stray? Did you chip me too?"_

_Fury sat back and regarded her coldly. "Your gratitude is underwhelming, Wilhemina." Her full name on his lips soured her stomach. "I'm sure I don't need to remind you of just where you were not so long ago."_

_She crossed her arms and glared. Peevish. "I could still choose that fate."_

_Fury threw his head back and laughed, then pinned her with a wide smile. "Please invite me to that party, my dear! I wouldn't want to miss that spectacle." His smile then dropped away._

"_My job is usually to rid the world of monsters, not keep them on a leash. Trust me when I tell you I'll never turn my back."_

_It was her turn to smile. "I promise you'll be the last one standing."_

She'd stretched that leash out as far as she thought it would go without drawing attention. Not really wanting to snap it just yet. Like she told herself a number of times, living in the lap of luxury had its advantages. Resources were resources, even if your wrists were shackled to the wall. And, of course, there were the people.

Another sigh. Willa started to gather up her notes and phone in preparation to leave when a shadow fell across the table. She glanced up to see Bruce hovering. Speak of the devil.

"He's still mad." Banner tried to look contrite, but Willa could see the strain around his eyes.

"_You're_ still mad," she corrected. "Don't project onto Stark because you don't want to get into an argument."

It had been five days since Tony stomped out of Banner's lab after finding out Willa had declined to tell them about Loki's visit. Bruce had fretted at her for a good long hour after that, though she had actively ignored him and dove into her work, and Thor had silently removed himself sometime during Bruce's litany. She didn't know where he had gone and hadn't seen him since.

It was unclear whether Stark had tattled on her to the rest of the team, but the only consequence to her actions that was so far apparent was the downgrading of her security access to the privacy option in the labs. Jarvis seemed more than happy to point out that all her activities were to be catalogued in the mandatory log going forward. Tony was such a juvenile little shit sometimes, but honestly, she couldn't blame him. He wasn't limiting her activities, he wasn't kneecapping her work, he was just protecting his own ass…and the team. She'd be damned if she was going to apologize though.

Bruce dropped into a chair and leaned his elbows on the table, playing with his watch as he stared at her cup of coffee. Willa knew this look. He was trying to find the right words and not hurt her feelings. It made her smile a little bit inside. Adorkable.

"Spit it out," she said lightly. "You know I won't take it personally."

"That's just it," he emphasized, a look of concern now. "It _is_ personal. Loki picked _you_. And you not realizing that is…it's…" He glanced away and then took a breath before focusing back on her. "It's dangerous and stupid, Willa."

She ran her finger around the rim of her cup and gave him an assessing look. "When have you ever known me to be stupid, Bruce?" He had the grace to flinch slightly. "I'm fully aware Loki targeted me specifically. He was clear about that. He was clear about his intention. Both of those things sounded alarms, and that's actually why I chose _not_ to reveal the visit to anyone else. It was exactly what he wanted me to do and I wasn't going to indulge him."

Bruce scooted back and rubbed his hand over his face. Crossed his arms. His social awkwardness was on full display when he was aggravated. "He was trying to distract us, I get that. That's what he does. But it's difficult to distinguish his red herrings from his actual intent, and that's what bothers me the most here." Once he got talking his posture relaxed and he crossed his legs and decided to fiddle with a napkin.

"Are you a distraction? Or are you a target?" he asked. "One gets us killed, the other gets you killed. Though, considering the stakes, they both get you killed. And I'm not okay with that." The napkin was now being shredded.

"Maybe I'm bait?" she offered, watching his reaction. He went from unsettled to puzzled. "This is Loki, Bruce. His confidence of victory often short-sights his caution. But he's a hunter…a predator. He's hungry. And he also assumes you, the Avengers, think like predators and he's assuming you are similarly motivated. Target driven."

"He thinks we're all idiots," Bruce interjected.

"Maybe not idiots," she argued, "just inferior." She drained the last of the coffee and leaned into the space between then. "What if he thinks that if he dangles some bait from the hook, you'll lose all sense of the mission? Last time he, himself, was not the target. He gave you a whole army to fight. I think he's feeling a little vulnerable this time, in whatever convoluted scheme he's wrapped up in, and may try to throw up a shield. Human shields that allow him to deflect the attack. He has such a warped sense of attachment that he sees any relationship as an opportunity for betrayal and sabotage. That's why he's killing Tony's employees. But you already know that."

Bruce hummed agreement and tapped at his lip, speeding up the mental hamsters. "He sees you as more than just an employee, though, and therefore he assumes by using you as leverage he can somehow manipulate the game into his lopsided favor."

"I'm the chum, and you all are the feeding frenzy." She agreed, then grunted. "Of course, like you said, there's the same amount of chance that he's just stirring the pot because he can." She stared out over the cityscape and thought about stirring her own pot

The both sat for a minute in thoughtful silence, Bruce less confident than she, until Willa decided to change the subject.

"Not really any point in chasing it," she chirped, "so, who's accepting the challenge?"

Now Banner looked uncomfortable and wiggled around in his seat, napkin bits firmly crumpled in his hand. "Yeah, that's still a sticky point. And I'm not supposed to give you the details." He had a little trouble spitting out that last part.

Willa raised her eyebrows with a sly smile. "Oh really? How…mature."

"C'mon, Willa," he pleaded. "It kind of makes sense, even from a non-childish standpoint. Loki's no stranger to mind control. I'm sure he learned more from that tesseract than he let on. Why give him opportunity?"

Okay, she had to agree with him on that point. The less she knew of the plan the better. And, honestly, considering how well her own personal alternative plan was progressing, their plan became less and less of her business.

"Fine. Let the big boys keep their little secrets." Bruce winced, and Willa had a fleeting regret for her barb. "Chances are, I won't see him again as he knew I was less than impressed with his performance." She went to scoot her chair back and was surprised when Bruce laid his hand on her forearm to stop her.

"That's what bothers me," he said softly. "Probably more that I want to admit. The chance that you _could_ see him again. The pot stirring that could burn you. I'm not…I'm…" He took a breath and dove in. "I don't like thinking about you getting hurt, Willa." He squeezed gently. "I don't want that."

She was touched. He was sincere, and she felt valued for a moment. It was nice, and she placed her other hand on top his for reassurance. Grinned gently at him. "I appreciate that, Bruce, I truly do."

The mood was ruined as her watch buzzed a quick alert on her phone. One that drew her immediate attention. Willa snatched up the device and looked at it curiously. Someone was trying to sneak into her personnel records. _What the actual hell?_

"Are you kidding me?" she blurted to no one in particular.

Bruce was immediately concerned and ready to pop out of his chair. "What's going on? What's wrong?"

Willa waved him back down. "It's nothing to do with this." He looked unsure and she insisted. "Completely unrelated to anything here, I promise. It's personal." She might actually maim Tony a little bit.

She jumped up and packed her belongings into her bag and dug for some cash for a tip. Bruce was still sitting and encouraged her to go. "I got it," he said, with a shooing motion. She nodded her thanks and was a few steps away when she remembered something and looked back.

"Thunder from Down Under is going to be problem," she said to Bruce. "He's conflicted."

"Yeah," Banner frowned. "It's already been duly noted."

_xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx_

Willa stood in the brightly lit study of the woman she only knew as Iris. That wasn't her real name, and Willa didn't care. Iris had a product that Willa wanted and a price that was acceptable. Done and done. Now she was just waiting for the woman to put the finishing touch on one of the pieces.

It had taken Willa about thirty minutes to determine that the clandestine hit on her personnel file was from an outside source. The discovery probably saved Tony from a few thousand dollars of dental work, but it gave her a headache because she had a pretty good idea of who it was. Really, it was the only conclusion that made sense. The only entity on the entire world who felt like they didn't know enough about her.

She had to admit, there was a long moment of pause and indecision before her next step. Bruce's warning, and her own gut instinct, begged her to leave it alone. Willa had gone toe-to-toe with insanity before and come out only partially on fire, but Loki was a piece of work. One wrong step and she'd be nothing more than a pile of ash.

It was actually that last thought that lit up some old thought patterns like a Christmas tree. _Pile of ash. Bait._

_Holy crap, _she thought, with a little crazy giggle_, I really _am_ insane._

The next several hours were spent in deliberate thought. Willa's brain rapidly theorized, tested and discarded too many scenarios to count as she whittled down a plan. Following the twists and turns of cause and effect of what she intended had her pacing her apartment while mumbling expletives. Valentine watched dispassionately from the window sill. Finally, Willa threw herself on her bed in frustration.

"If I can tie these last two pieces together," she informed the cat, "it'll work." She stretched out her legs and flung her arms out to her sides. "I mean, theoretically. There's really no guarantee with a chaotic system, you know?" Valentine sensed an opportunity and jumped on the bed to stand on Willa's chest.

"Sure, it's easy for you, cat," Willa blew gently on the cat's face so she'd bat at her lips. "You just stand on your victim and proclaim victory. This joker's like wrestling a greased pig. A really scary pig with magical powers. I'm sure there's no way it could go badly, right?" Valentine just turned around and laid down with her butt on Willa's chin.

"Yeah, I'm definitely going to die."

Iris snapped her back to the present with a question.

"You want me to insert the decoy packet through your remote connection?" Iris asked again, confirming the odd request a final time.

"Yes."

"And Stark's fancy AI program couldn't do this for you because…?" Iris side-eyed her, slightly amused.

"Because he's nosy and I'm mad at him," Willa replied haughtily. Iris barked a laugh.

"Men," the woman agreed, then showed Willa some jibberish on the screen. "There. The decoy packet can't be distinguished from the real one. When you want to lie with the dogs you just have to cover yourself with fleas." She typed a few more lines. "Or something vaguely proverbial like that. He can't see it."

"Perfect," Willa replied. "How will I know it's been delivered?"

"As soon there's another probe it'll latch on. The IP address from the source will pop up." Iris slid her laptop back over to her and got up to grab a beer from the biohazard fridge. Willa wasn't entirely sure why the hacker had a biohazard fridge in her study.

"You sure it'll follow all the way back? There's a lot of savvy techies out there. You're not the only shop in town," Willa pressed.

Iris chugged half the beer and grinned over at her. "Sweetie, if someone's got the balls to sneak around Jarvis, they learned at my knee. They can't hide from me." She belched softly and came back to the table. "Plus, they're querying a limited access vault, nothing secret or highly restricted, so chances are they're not even aware someone would care. Why hide if they're just one of many interested parties who would have legitimate access. I wouldn't." She finished the beer and tapped a few more keys to close the program. "They'll be back, and they'll get what they think they want."

Willa was actually less concerned with the source than just knowing the data she wanted transmitted would find its way to Loki. She had a feeling he wouldn't be able to resist the lure. Not because she was overconfident, but because they were too much alike. Once their minds were committed to a plan…

"_You want to know who I really am?"_ she whispered to him, feeling a little powerful. The decoy file only contained one field of data; her real identity.

"Hmmmm?" Iris asked, having gone back over to rummage in the fridge again. Coming up with what vaguely looked like a sandwich. "I'm sure that's not all you needed. You could've done that yourself."

"Not without risk of being caught by the wonder-bot," Willa growled. "I'm an exceptional programmer, but hacking was never my forte. I'm clumsy. However, you're right. I have something else that I really came for."

Iris plopped back down at her desk with her dubious sandwich while Willa explained her request. It took about thirty minutes and a lot of questions, but in the end Iris assured her she could do it.

The hacker leaned back and stared at the ceiling for a moment. "I'll have it for you in two weeks."

Willa reached into her bag and placed another pack of bills on the desk. "You have eight days."

Iris always liked an impossible challenge and grinned widely. "Consider it done."


	7. Chapter 7

"_**In my dreams," said Ender, "I'm never sure whether I'm really me."**_

* * *

The only problem with early morning runs is that they were early. And runs. So two problems, actually.

Willa gasped a bit harder as she ran up the stairs leading to the elevated park, breath fogging slightly in the cool, autumn air of dawn. The days were still warm, but now the nights began to usher in winter's fragrance, and the mornings would soon be frosty and dark. She was glad for the warmth of the first rays of sun as she crested the grass covered track. It seemed especially difficult to get warm today, even with the exercise. She supposed lack of sleep had a bit to do with that.

It had been another long night of nightmares and second thoughts. She was tired. Tired of the waiting, tired of the stress, tired of double and triple checking her work. It was just that she needed to do _something_. Old habits die hard, and she was never one to leave details to chance. Project Kevlar was perfection. Project Hail Mary was…well…exactly that.

The play of light beams and shadows flickering across her face as she turned north towards the river had a hypnotizing effect, and her mind dove into another review of the plan. The problem with the Hail Mary pass was that even if everything was executed perfectly, trajectory and velocity flawless, if no one showed up to catch the ball it was a dud. Game over. And this particular Hail Mary was going to be a play action pass, which made the pre-game preparations especially essential. She wasn't entirely sure whether she was the ball or the quarterback, in all honesty.

At one point she berated herself for thinking she was valuable enough to Loki to even lure him off the scent. Like she had told Bruce, there was always the chance he found her entertaining to toy with for the pure pleasure of watching her psychological torment. Nothing more. Then there was also the chance she was stepping into karmic shoes of revenge, which never ended well. Though that wasn't really her style. Watching someone get their comeuppance was always satisfying, but she usually only waded in far enough to give them directions to that side of town. She left the beat down to those with other motivations.

Doing a quick two-step over goose poop near the river, Willa shook off the 'what if's and focused on what she knew for sure. Her gut continued to drive her, and instinct was a powerful ally. She could _feel_ his intent. And really, she would have to finally admit to the sentiment at this point. She _liked_ her friends. The rest of the world could take a ride off a cliff on a burning bus for all she really cared, but she actually felt some affection towards those damned spandex-wearing, color changing misfits. Birds of a feather in some twisted way, she supposed. She thought back to her childhood for a quick minute and the few friends she had had. Nope…there really wasn't anything she wouldn't do to save a friend. Kind of freeing.

So she had to let this play out…had to trust her gut that he'd follow the carrot. All her research, all the stories she'd gathered about him over the past few weeks led her to the same conclusion; he liked to play with his prey before the kill. She just had to present herself as the most interesting toy to choose from. Willa thought about what he'd be reading about her and smiled to herself. Oh yeah, he'd definitely want this toy.

She loosened the zipper on her jacket as she hopped down the stairs back to street level and mentally focused back around to current logistics.

Loki's third messenger was discovered six days ago, three days after Iris informed Willa that her decoy file had been picked up. This time, the note pinned to the body listed a latitude and longitude. The Avengers now knew where to be in exactly 48 hours. Of course, the team immediately set out to case the location and investigate whether they would be able to use it in some way to their advantage.

Willa still remained ignorant of the plan, and for that she was grateful. Partly because it would only irritate her to examine its futility, and partly because she needed to be solely focused on refining the last pieces of her own. She had everything she needed and would be waiting on the field. The only thing missing was Loki.

Stark snidely asked her how her boyfriend was doing at least once a day. It was old the first time. He was speaking to her again though, so she imagined his ego had recovered from its perceived slight, but there was still a little bit of him that harbored residual doubt. He had honed in on Project Kevlar a few days ago as she walked in.

"_Heard anything from my future lab assistant-in-law recently?" Stark quipped around a mouthful of peanuts._

_Bruce grumbled from around the desk, "Give it a rest, Tony."_

_Willa just ignored him and wandered over to the hanging screen to bring up some files. The smell of peanuts wafted a bit closer and she looked over to see Stark perched with one hip on the table near her. He looked pensive. _

"_I was thinking," he started._

"_You know," she interrupted, "you say that a lot, but I don't think it's actually happening."_

"_Mmmm," he grunted, unimpressed. He flipped another peanut into his mouth and continued. "I've been thinking that there's a chance…just a little, teeny tiny chance…" He looked over at Bruce with a shrug, "just a flicker of a disturbance in the universe…"_

"_We get it," Willa snapped. "A chance of what?"_

"_That Project Kevlar could be compromised," Tony rushed through the sentence and had the grace to then look like he probably shouldn't have carried that thought through. "And that sounded better in my head."_

Her reaction to the accusation was probably a bit over the top, Willa thought with a mental shrug, but it served its purpose. Luckily Bruce had a few extra vials of the Kevlar serum stashed since she wasted one right there in her own neck. Tony whined that she had used his. Bruce nervously waited for her to combust for most of the rest of the day. Willa unconsciously reached up to rub her neck with a wince. Clint was right…it hurt like hell, though she had felt pretty damned perky through to the next day. Sadly, Banner declined her invite to spar with the Big Guy by asking what the hell was wrong with her. Disappointing.

Willa had managed another half mile during her reverie and now turned down the last streets towards home. 48 hours. Her lungs burned and her eyes stung as she thought about it. It wasn't the thought of death that distressed her, it was the feeling of helplessness. _C'mon coach_, she thought, _put me in_.

She almost missed it. Focused on her inner turmoil and the end of the route, she almost discounted the flash of white in the small alley as a trick of the light. Some primal part of her brain pulled her up short and demanded another look. Willa stuttered to a stop, then slowly backed up to cautiously peer into the shadowy space, breathing hard. It was Manhattan, and she wasn't stupid.

There was no movement, just the blob of white lying on the ground about six feet beyond the narrow entrance. She sucked in a breath as she identified it; the matching glove to the original gauntlet thrown by Loki. A small part of her wooted in glee…the rest of her strongly encouraged retreat as it was obviously a trap. But if she ran now he'd be disappointed, and she wasn't about to fumble the golden ball.

She walked slowly towards the glove with every nerve exposed and alert. Nothing moved in the shadows, and she stood over the object a minute later with all her senses buzzing. "Fat chance in hell I pick that up," she muttered. She nudged it with her tennis shoe and flopped it over instead. It lay there, slightly dirty now on the underside. Willa's head snapped up and looked around again, checked the air above her. Nothing. No one. Her uneasiness spiked as she truly measured the smallness of the space she was in. Time to go. She spun back towards the entrance and he was standing two feet away.

Willa squeaked and put a hand out to grab the wall. "Goddammit, Loki!"

His smile was slow and broad. "Now you sound like my mother."

Willa did a quick mental recovery and willed the rest of her body to just keep up. "Why can't you just announce yourself like a normal person?" She eyeballed the width of the alley to calculate whether she could slip by him, then remembered; it was just a projection. The thought brought a wisp of comfort. No need for Defcon One…she could just walk away.

Loki pouted insincerely and held his hands out in self display. "Normal person?" he scolded. "Now, Doctor, we both know neither of us were put in this universe to be normal. How dull would that be?"

He seemed even more smug than the last time she saw him, and she had an idea why. Good. He thought he knew more than he thought she knew he knew…or something like that. Her brain had skid marks right now. But she was sure he thought he had the upper hand, and that was perfect. Thor had said that was when he was the most suggestable and least wary. Typical megalomaniac, and she had met some of the most ego bloated of them. Time to see if he'd play catch.

"It didn't work, you know." Willa stood straight and challenged him. "They didn't take the bait."

Loki just shrugged, unconcerned. "Well, I haven't truly dangled it in front of them yet, my dear."

She kept her expression neutral and angled a bit more towards the street. "Time's running out. I imagine you'll have to rattle their cage pretty soon or you're just going to have to play ball in their court."

He hummed and smiled, unruffled. Smoothed his shirt. "How I love the imagery of your language. It's so aggressive. It's really no wonder you're such suspicious and violent creatures. Asgardians are so painfully polite with their 'thees' and 'thous' and 'whilst nots.' I often feel like I must sit and have tea prior to any altercation. My brother is a particularly agonizing example." There was a hint of a sneer in his tone.

"Yet you're hiding from him," she retorted, distantly amused by the sibling rivalry and Loki's darkening scowl. "Because you know what he's capable of. Sweet, but deadly."

His scowl morphed into a feral grin as he assessed her. "So many things in this universe hide unspeakable horror under such beautiful exteriors. I'm sure you would agree."

"Actually, you've got the whole pretty horrible package going right there," she quipped, gesturing at him. "No real surprises."

Loki's face darkened briefly, but he recovered quickly with a thoughtful frown. "'Oh what a tangled web we weave, when we practice to deceive.'" His green gaze pinned her, malicious and amused. "Did you really expect me to think you were 'just another scientist?' My dear, the universe is full of bad liars just waiting for litigation, and I thought you were just one of them, but the rats gave you away, in case you were curious." He smiled and shivered a bit and she felt colder. "I knew I needed to know about you at that moment, though I had already decided your fate. And I am oh so very glad I expended the effort."

So he did get the decoy packet after all, she thought. It was hard to keep her thoughts from racing ahead and maintain a delicate balance between fear and anticipation. His compulsion would slightly shift the favor of the universe towards her and she wanted to encourage that momentum. String him along, but don't give him anything. She had to be careful. Conning a con man was a deadly endeavor.

"I'm not sure what you mean?" she lied, willing herself to look appropriately guilty.

Loki rolled his eyes and shook his head sadly. "Pity. I'd think you'd be better at this after all that you've done. I could teach you so much."

"There is nothing you have that I want." Willa retorted. That statement was mostly true. She watched him appear to lean against the wall and again gauged the distance to the exit. For some reason she was reluctant to walk right through the hologram. It seemed…wrong.

"Look at you," he waved a hand in her direction. "You look like a fawn left too long by its mother. Skittish and unsure of itself, ready to bolt. You can only run so far before you're hunted down." The sadistic grin was back. "But you already know that, don't you?"

"Juarez," his voice was low and amused as he counted off on his fingers, "Nepal, Pakistan…all the 'stans…"

Willa flared her nostrils and clenched her fists with the surprising flash of anger. He stopped and just raised one eyebrow…waiting for confirmation. She edged along the opposite wall towards the street as he watched her. "It won't work, Loki. You're still underestimating them. They're not opposed to sacrifices."

His eyes glittered. "Then I guess it'll just be fun."

She caught his scent about a second too late, and then he had a hold of her. Her arms were gripped tightly as she was dragged up against his chest. Willa resisted and struggled, but was soon trapped between the god and the wall. She scraped her shoulders against the brick until he gave her a little shake that rattled her brain. He dropped his head down to hers to hiss into her ear, "Do they know what you really are?"

She refused to look at him. "Does it matter?"

He sniffed at her hair and pressed her further into the wall and she was forced to push at him ineffectually. "Let me go or I'll scream."

"Please don't," he scolded, squeezing her upper arms more painfully. "The homicide rate in this city is appallingly high already. I would hate to contribute to the current body count."

It was not an idle threat, Willa knew. He would delight in the opportunity.

"I will not be your entertainment, Loki," she stated, keeping her voice neutral and becoming very still. He switched from a tight grip to a soft caress from one second to the next, rubbing his thumbs over the developing bruises on her arms.

"Oh, I doubt you will be given that choice, dear Wilhemina," he purred. "Just think of what fun we could have. The desperation, the wailing and futile gnashing of teeth as the battle is lost and humanity is doomed. Do you not miss it?"

Willa shuddered involuntarily against his chest and subtly repositioned herself. "I've danced with more interesting gods," she whispered, then levered one elbow against the brick and abruptly drove her fingertips into his throat. Loki choked and quickly stepped backwards, freeing her. It wasn't a hard hit, but painful enough to be momentarily shocking, and gave her time to quickly back out of the alley.

"I am not a pawn," she said, once she stood on the sidewalk beyond the shadows. "Be careful."

He looked murderous as he coughed and recovered, but was loathe to pursue her into the daylight_. Play in motion_, Willa thought, as she turned and sprinted like the wind towards home.

_xx—xx—xx—xx—xx—xx_

Willa continued to run once inside Stark Tower, straight up a couple flights of stairs to the interior elevators that led to the labs. She caught her breath and smoothed her ponytail as the car hurled skyward, chanting, "C'mon, c'mon…" at the digital floor display. There were just a few items that she needed to activate on her laptop that were time dependent with a limited viability. Her window of opportunity had just opened and she was damned if she was going to miss it.

The car lurched to a stop and Willa squeezed through the doors as they slid open, trotting around the corner and through the doors of the lab, pulling off her jacket as she went. She tossed the jacket over her chair, ignored Jarvis' greeting, and quickly pulled out her laptop and inserted the portable drives, attached the small device given to her by Iris to a port and furiously typed some commands. Her finger stabbed the Enter button and she pumped her fists in the air in silent victory, enjoying the moment.

She felt alive. Purpose driven. Obviously, she had become…dull…over the past few years and it felt oh so satisfying to be honing the edge again. She truly did miss it. Putting her hands on her hips and regarding her domain, she allowed herself one more mental pat on the back. The programming would take about thirty minutes, so she had time to grab some water and…

A hand touched her back.

Willa yelped and skittered sideways so violently she almost tripped over her own feet before grabbing the edge of a table and spinning around to meet the threat. A tousled haired, sleepy eyed threat who now looked as alarmed as she did and held its hands up for her to see.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Bruce murmured, clearly confused. "It's just me. I said hello, but you were obviously…not listening."

She continued to eye him warily. Granted, she had been ginned up on adrenaline and laser focused on her tasks, but even then she should've been alerted to his approach. _Did he freakin' _float_ over?_ She must've hesitated for just a little too long and his own radar pinged.

"What's wrong?" he looked less sleepy now. "What happened?"

"I'm just little tired of people suddenly appearing, that's all." Willa stretched her neck and patted at her hair in an attempt to regain her decorum. "Seems to be the theme this month." She was still unsettled and trying to unfry her nerves and he could tell. She tried to distract him.

"So, what brings you over so early?" she asked.

"I, uh," his mental gears were engaged. "I saw you were here and wanted to talk…and…" The cogs all aligned and he straightened quickly.

"You saw Loki." He was matter of fact, fully awake, and deadly serious. The Bruce who tossed her behind that couch. The Bruce whose brain worked possibly faster than hers and who now was going to throw a fit.

She talked quickly, "There was a fifty percent chance of a repeat performance, Bruce. We both knew that." Folding her arms over her chest she shrugged, hoping the nonchalance would calm him. "It didn't make it any less startling."

Now he looked pissed and puzzled. "Why didn't Jarvis alert us when…oh." Pissed won and he gestured sharply to her outfit. "He tracked you outside."

_Well, this was going swimmingly_, she thought, her own ire rising to meet his. "Yeah," she agreed, antsy to close the subject and move on. "He's still on the same kick to try to introduce confusion. I told him no one was going to play his game and he could basically fuck off. He wasn't impressed, but he left."

"I don't like it," Bruce was now wired tight and bounced irritably on the balls of his feet.

"You don't have to like it," she snapped back at him. She scooted towards her jacket on the chair behind him, nudging him out of her way with her shoulder. "And there's not much you can do about it anyways. The time for that has passed." Her peevishness bothered her, but she didn't need Bruce, or any of them, to decide they wanted to point attention in her direction.

For the second time that morning she found herself in a man's grip. This one, though, intended no harm. Banner had snagged her outstretched wrist and was now holding her arm away from her body and staring intently at the very thing she was hoping to cover with the jacket. He rotated her arm gently and eyeballed the scratches on the back. She could practically hear his teeth grind.

"He's escalated," she explained, testing his grip. No sense in trying to lie. "He still thinks he can intimidate me."

She sensed a shift in his energy, and when he looked up at her she swore she saw a flash of green.

"Don't even think about it," she hissed. "You put it back in the box right now, Banner." She matched her breathing to his and stared him down.

He pressed his lips together and deliberately released her arm. "That's the problem. I don't have to think about it. It happens without much thinking." His voice had dropped a timbre. Willa was having none of it.

"I refuse to believe that," she countered harshly. "Control it, Bruce. Or, by god, I swear I will walk right out of this building and into his hands. Save you all the confusion."

They spent the next minute in a silent duel of wills, and eventually, Willa won. Bruce rolled his shoulders, shoved his hands in his pockets and walked away from her to stand over by the windows. The atmosphere remained supercharged, to she let him cool down for a bit while she shrugged into her jacket. Pulling up the zipper, she spoke to his back.

"I'll stay in the monitored portions of the building. Make everyone happy, including me. We all know what he's trying to do, he knows we know, so he's less likely to try to do it." She was sure he was going to come for her. She had practically dared him. Had their positions been reversed, he would be her only goal. "This is not the time to fall down any rabbit holes."

Bruce nodded from across the room, still staring out the window. Still thinking and not convinced. _Damnit_, she thought, she should've been more vigilant. She had to derail this train before it reached a destination.

"Is there anything else I can do?" Her question was a peace offering with a wisp of manipulation. Let him think she'd cater to his need to keep her safe.

"Develop a better sense of self-preservation?" he offered waspishly. Okay, she deserved that. She thought about a soft touch on an earlier day and was surprised by a vague wave of unease.

"Bruce?" she called softly into the silence, watching as he finally turned his head to see her over his shoulder. "Are you going to be accepting the challenge?"

Willa may have held her breath slightly waiting for the answer, reluctant to admit to that level of caring, but she felt oddly reassured when he looked up at her and shook his head.

"No. It won't be me."

"Good. I'm glad." Smiling and returning her intent to distraction, she headed towards the door. "Now let's eat some breakfast, before there's any more excitement for the day."


	8. Chapter 8

"_**I need you to be clever, Bean. I need you to think of solutions to problems we haven't seen yet. I want you to try things that no one has ever tried because they're absolutely stupid."**_

* * *

Her doorbell rang at 9 p.m. and Willa wandered over to answer, half curious and half distracted. She had been banned from the lab by the team as they finalized their preparations for tomorrow, Tony suggesting she should sleep and there was nothing more for her to do. There wasn't, at least on their end. Willa actually appreciated the chance to retreat to her cozy living room to let her guard down, even though Bruce had insisted Jarvis be allowed some limited monitoring to her quarters. But sleep wasn't going to be on the agenda, she was sure. She wasn't sure which emotions she would eventually decide upon, but calm and restful certainly weren't going to be in the top ten. Anticipation and focused fear were winning the contest…her usual the night before delivering a project.

One of Stark's mailroom attendants greeted her on the other side of the door. "This was left for you today, Dr. Marshall," he said, handing her a very small cardboard box. "I don't know why it didn't get delivered to the lab. I thought I'd bring it by on my way out."

Willa took it with a thank you as he wandered off, closing the door slowly as she peered at the box. Her title and name were neatly typed on a Stark Industries' label taped to the lid, but she couldn't remember requesting anything from supply chain. Of course, considering the amount of mental turmoil and intellectual activity over the past few days, she probably forgot more things than she remembered.

She slid the top off the box and almost threw the whole thing against the wall. Spinning around frantically, she checked the space behind her…next to her…even checked the ceiling. Heart pounding, and possibly whining anxiously a little bit, she then thoroughly checked the whole apartment before ending up back in the living room, dry mouthed, staring at the opened box now tossed on the coffee table.

A pawn. A beautiful jade pawn. And a note; 'Come and sip from the cup of destruction. - L'

Willa finally reached down to gently pluck the pawn from the bottom of the box. It was cool and smooth, the red highlights in the jade catching the light just so. A reminder of her part in his play. The whole gift telling her his plan. Willa's lip curled up slightly as she read the note again. His arrogance was so perfect.

"You're not going to like the taste," she whispered.

_xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx_

"If I may say, Dr. Marshall, you're looking quite fetching today." Jarvis's compliment put a small, tight smile on her face as she walked to her desk the next afternoon. She wasn't sure if he was attempting to lighten the mood, or just following etiquette protocols.

The Avengers had left early for the rendezvous point, not wanting to miss any chances that could be to their advantage, and Willa had remained in her apartment until they were gone. Good byes would not have been useful, and she hadn't wanted to make herself available quite yet. Now, with the team settled forty-five minutes from the building and the rest of the world entirely ignorant of its possible fate, she entered the lab with her senses on high alert, dressed for battle, and her weapons at her side.

"Why thank you, Jarvis," Willa replied, setting her items down on the counter. Stark had left her an earpiece if she wanted to follow the mission, and she picked it up to make a few adjustments before tucking it in her ear. Timing would be everything and she wanted to keep track of their status.

"Since I'm very likely going to die today I thought I'd dress it up a bit." She added, looking down at her sundress and colorful heels. Very unlike her usual attire, and the only bright spot of the day. It was her war uniform, and she had worn it before. It never failed to draw attention.

"What am I missing?" Tony sounded petulant. "Are you almost naked and I'm missing it?"

"Completely starkers, Rocket Boy," Willa teased, for once glad for his off-color humor. "You missed your last chance."

"I'm turning around right now," Tony joked, "Jarvis, don't let her change." Willa chuckled and adjusted the small bank of surveillance feed monitors near the chemical hoods. She was confident Jarvis was preoccupied and oblivious to her movements around the lab as she prepared. She needed to see one hallway.

"Dr. Marshall," Steve piped in, "what are you doing there anyway?" Willa could just imagine his cutely curious face. "Security measures were extended to your private quarters and I thought we were all agreed you would wait this out there."

"Mmmhmmm," she distracted indulged his question until she got the camera angle just right, then stood up and checked the doors. "Well," she finally replied, "I guess I don't remember agreeing to that, since I was never asked, and since my day has been ruined already with knowing it might be the last day I ever have, I figured I'd just get some work done and watch this disaster unfold real time." She swirled away and back to her desk, feeling antsy. "Thanks for earpiece, Stark. You're a peach."

This provoked audible dissention between Rogers and Stark, with an occasional injection by Banner, until saner minds prevailed_._

"Boys," Nat sing-songed, "must we today?"

The pre-mission tension always seemed to pit the two alpha males against each other. At least Thor wasn't tossed in the mix today. That always ended in property damage and bruised egos. Speaking of Thor…

"Has anyone heard from our illustrious God of Thunder yet?" Willa asked.

"I'm thinking he's not real keen on another family reunion," Clint drawled. "Haven't seen him since Loki sent us his last telegram of doom."

Willa grunted softly as she moved her large coffee mug in order to set up her laptop. Thor's motivation remained murky and no one knew why he had abandoned the team. Despite declaring the Earth as under his protection, Willa was also certain he'd never fully sever allegiance to his brother. There was still a good chance he would fail any test of loyalty, so she just hoped he stayed away…or at least didn't interfere if he did show up. "Don't be a dick, Thor," she muttered under her breath.

Conversation continued between the Avengers, but Willa had tuned out. She was staring at her blank computer screen as she fiddled with the stone pawn in her dress pocket. The light of day had cast some doubt onto her plan, of course, so she had brought the macabre present with her to remind her to stay the course. Her throat was dry with anticipation and she was glad she had the connection to the team. Their voices stayed her convictions. _My friends_.

"We don't even know if he'll show," Natasha was saying when Willa tuned back in. "This could be a waste of time."

"Right." Tony didn't sound completely convinced. He turned his attention to Willa. "Marshall, are you one hundred percent positive Loki didn't drop any hints about his strategy? Didn't happen to mention Colonel Mustard or a candlestick by chance?"

Willa pressed her lips together in irritation, now setting up Iris' device. "I assure you I want to survive this as much as you do. He had nothing concrete to say. He was his usual metaphorical, allegorical self."

A figure on the surveillance cams caught Willa's eye and she almost fumbled the small adaptor device Iris had given her. Shakely inserting it into her laptop, she kept one eye on the person of interest outside; the same mailroom attendant who had delivered the package last night. He was walking slowly down the hallway towards the main lab doors and he looked up, caught her eye and winked. Willa blanched.

She reached over quickly and grabbed a cable that would attach to the mainframe, her world narrowed down to one other creature on the planet. The lab doors swooshed open, Willa attached the cable to the adaptor, and the attendant stepped into the room with the doors closing quickly behind him. A series of small red lights flashed onto her computer screen. She fisted her hands on the desk in front of her and decided who she needed to be.

Jarvis reacted immediately to the data transfer. "Dr. Marshall, what are you doing?"

"What is she doing?" Tony asked, confused.

"It seems, sir, that Dr. Marshall has introduced a program that prevents me from accessing any circuitry leading into the lab, including access to any entry or exit points. Nor am I able to access redundant systems or security overrides for those programs. I'm completely locked out and I'm not entirely sure how."

"What's going on, Willa?" Bruce sounded worried.

"My friends," she said softly, apologizing, refusing to turn around quite yet to meet her intruder. "I didn't see any other way." Her gut was clenched with either impending doom or excitement. Hard to discern. "Loki won't be meeting you."

"What do you mean?" Steve sounded very anxious in the sudden silence of her declaration.

"He had other plans."Slowly, she swiveled around on the stool and met a green-eyed gaze.

"Hello, Loki."

Loki allowed himself to transform from his disguise into his full formal attire upon her greeting, and he regarded her regally from the center of the room.

"Delighted to see you, Doctor Marshall," his voice bathed her nerves like a fine whiskey, "I am so utterly pleased that you have chosen to dress appropriately for the occasion. I was not entirely sure you would agree to my invite, and it was inconvenient to think I would have to hunt you down."

Willa studied the other being in the room for a long moment, slightly unprepared. In his full regalia he exuded power and confidence, and reeked of arrogance. That same miasma she remembered from before, just slightly more terrifying. She was hoping this shock factor was going to wear off quickly. The cacophony of confusion and anger in her ear started to register and she put her head on straight.

"It would've been rude to ignore such a compelling invitation to the end of things, don't you think?" _Yes,_ she thought_, let's banter. I can do banter while I regroup._

That seemed to please him in some way and he smirked unpleasantly. "Such little trust in your Avenger friends. Surely their grand plan will prevail and I will suffer humiliating defeat, no? You were so sure the other day."

"I never specified who's end," she replied slyly. "Hate to presume." Willa tapped at her earpiece and winced. "And it seems they didn't plan for this turn of events."

He smiled genuinely and she understood how some could be taken in by this creature. "I fretted a bit about my gift, I have to admit. I tend to be somewhat unconventional when offering invitations, and my recipients often disappoint me by misinterpreting my intent."

Willa was careful with her response. "It was perfect. You have no idea how much it meant to me."

-..-..-..

"Is he a fucking Santa Claus?!" Clint barked. "I'm both angry and terrified right now and _somebody_ better tell me what's going on."

"It seems we've been betrayed," Steve spit out, sounding angry. Bruce was whining slightly and Nat was attempting to soothe him quietly as she quickly ushered him back to the jet.

"Not _betrayed_, Captain Righteous," Tony replied slowly, hovering and thinking at warp speed. "Tricked. We've been tricked. And I have a bad feeling about it."

The team had hurried back to the jet and Barton jumped in the cockpit to lift them off abruptly.

"I really don't see the difference right now, Stark." Steve growled.

"Does it really freaking matter?" Banner's voice was tense and drew everyone's attention. "If we don't get back there _right now_ he's going to kill her. Squabbling over motivation is as ridiculous as thinking she'll be able to hold her own against a lunatic. What is she _doing_?"

"Easy there, big guy," Natasha soothed. "This smells like a set up, and I'm guessing she's got a pretty good plan." She shot Steve a worried look that he returned. "Either that or she's suicidal and looking for a quick ticket off this rock." She continued to keep on hand on Bruce even though he shot daggers at her with a glare. "I don't like it either, but I think we're stuck with letting her work."

"We can blast our way in." Barton offered.

"If there's anything left to salvage by the time we get there," Tony replied, dismissing the idea. "Jarvis, stop dicking around and send me the feed from the security cams on the balcony and patch us into the reflective audio from the ducts. At least we'll be able to see _something_."

"Romanoff is right, and we don't have the luxury of time to analyze the situation." Steve recovered his role as team leader quickly. "Let's get back to base, secure a perimeter and some sort of visual, but try not to be seen. When Loki comes out of there we're taking him down with prejudice. Jarvis, is there anything you can do to flush him out?"

"I'm sorry, Captain Rogers. Dr. Marshall's algorithm is impressively random and oddly elusive. I don't recognize it. It has jammed all access and it will take me some more time to override it. She's effectively sealed us out and herself in."

"Dammit," Tony muttered.

"Stark," Steve asked, "what else can you do?"

"I don't know. I'm thinking. I really hate it when _I'm_ not the super genius."


	9. Chapter 9

"_**If you try and lose then it isn't your fault. But if you don't try and we lose, then it's all your fault."**_

* * *

Willa slid off her stool and leaned against the lab table. She wanted to be more mobile and still needed to be less scared. You didn't stay seated while you were in the cage with the tigers. Loki was visually assessing the space he was in again, not completely relaxed, but not tense either, and she watched him. Cocky bastard knew, that at the moment, he was top of the food chain. He must've felt her eyes on him and turned back to flash her a grin.

"Are they riding to your rescue?" he asked, tapping his own ear as she looked at him questioningly. He was mocking her. "I imagine they must be nearly apoplectic by now."

"I already told you they were prepared to make sacrifices." Willa retorted. "They just don't understand the game yet." She watched Loki think about that one, starting to feel a little more in control…a little more like the woman she used to be.

He eyed her thoughtfully. "The game? But my dear Willa," he reached up to rub at his throat, "you were quite emphatic about not being my entertainment."

Willa slid her hand into her pocket and gripped the other item she had placed there. Her palms were a little sweaty and she focused on the words instead of allowing herself to feel. "Oh, I think it will be mutually engaging," she replied. She pulled her hand out and placed the original glove on the table.

"I accept your challenge."

-..-..-

Bruce's shout of denial had Natasha holding his head with both hands, staring him directly in the face while she whispered a mantra. "Take a breath, take another breath. We are 10,000 feet in the air, you need to breathe. Look at me and breathe." He was doing his best.

"….fucking delusions of grandeur," Clint muttered while piloting the shuttle, Tony and Steve standing stiffly right behind him, both willing the craft to fly faster. Though neither knowing what they were going to do once they arrived other than watch helplessly.

-..-..-

Willa actually felt an electric shift in the air as Loki stood completely still, staring intently at her. Then he suddenly threw his head back and laughed.

"Oh, that was delightful," he exclaimed. "You had me for a moment there, but then I remembered, you are not an Avenger. My challenge cannot be answered by any other."

She pulled a face with a sniff, "You really should be more careful with your use of inclusive pronouns, my arrogant friend." He looked blank, so she continued. "I was in the room when you threw down the gauntlet and you were quite non-specific, I'm afraid."

He looked down at the floor in recall, then tilted his head and pursed his lips to gaze at her again. "I did not say 'Avengers' specifically?" Willa shook her head slowly with a shrug.

"Hmmm…" Loki thought some more. "You are quite sure?"

She sighed loudly and gestured over to the suspended screens. "I have it downloaded if you want to review the play. You definitely fumbled the carry there, Skippy." She didn't give him time to think about it.

"Now that we've got that established, shall we clarify the rules of engagement?" she asked.

Loki's eyes glittered and he shifted his weight with irritation then began to advance slowly. "You're a fool," he spat. "I will destroy you where you stand."

"Probably," she replied warily, then tapped at her watch when he stood still again. "Times a wasting and I'd like to get started. So, if you please, shall we review the parameters of this little…whatever?"

Loki gritted his teeth, clearly irritated with the turn of events. He began to pace slowly, keeping one eye on her. She could see the mental gears grinding. He was displeased on a number of levels and Willa worked hard to hide her delight. She suspected he wasn't caught flat footed often, and the fact that she wasn't already dead proved her assumption was correct; he was compelled to play it out.

"I warned you I wasn't a pawn," she reminded him, unable to completely quell a moment of smugness.

"You will regret your brief existence," he hissed, and she felt every ghost from her past crawl across her skin.

He looked pleased with her shudder, then straightened his shoulders. "It is very simple. When I win I will destroy the Avengers and claim my prize." Unconcerned. Dismissive.

"When _you_ win?" Willa challenged, one eyebrow raised, taking a seat back on her stool. "What if I win?"

He was instantly amused, then acquiesced with an eye roll when she continued to stare at him and the question stretched into silence. He sat down with a flourish, matching her.

"Fine. On the infinitesimal chance that you would somehow freakishly win, Midgard survives and I shall be banished from this world for all time. Terms and conditions satisfied, blah blah…" He waved one hand in the air casually.

Willa showed surprise. "Terms and conditions? Sounds like a contract is involved. That surprises me, Loki, considering how well that went for you the last time around." She shook her head and 'tsked' at him. "You never learn."

Loki sucked in a breath and glowered and Willa leaned back instinctively.

"Archaic pomp and circumstance that I find useless. Nevertheless," he drew out the word, "in order for my claim to the planet to be recognized I am…compelled…to abide by the _rules_." The word obviously tasted awful to him.

"Whose rules?" she asked, genuinely surprised it wouldn't just be a free-for-all. She remembered him practically reading from that script, though. Interesting.

"The who matters not," he snapped, obviously irritated by the line of questioning and standing to pace again. "Defeat is decided by either death or concession." Loki proclaimed it as if he had an audience, then turned to make sure she understood. "You die, you lose. You surrender, you lose. Simple."

"Got it," Willa assured him, then tilted her head in consideration, leaned back on the table and crossed her legs. "What if you flee?"

"I do not flee," he said, stiffening.

"You always run," she shot back, then continued as he glowered. "Fleeing is considered concession. For either of us." He nodded in agreement and dismissed the possibility with a quick flourish of his hand.

She looked at him with raised eyebrows, waiting for more. "Is that it?"

Loki sighed and attempted to not look pained, then mumbled something about weapons that she didn't quite catch.

"I'm sorry, your Highness, you'll have to say it again for the rest of the class."

"Choose. Your. Weapons," he spat each word, avoiding her gaze.

Well that was unexpected. Willa hopped off her chair and slowly wandered along the table, quickly trying to think of something useful on the fly. She couldn't exactly pick what she had brought, it wouldn't make any sense.

Drumming her fingers on the table, Willa stared at her hands, then smiled. It would be a shame to ruin his frustration with her. She turned to answer him with a grin.

"Hand to hand. No magic," she said.

That got his attention and she clarified. "You cannot use magic, or any magical device. The playing field is far from level, but if you're going to kill me you're going to have to do it with your bare hands."

He stood to his full height. "I am a god! A traveler of worlds with abilities beyond what your puny mind can even imagine." Loki threw his hands out and puffed up with a sneer. "You believe confining me to hand-to-hand combat gives you any advantage? That's your choice? How horribly disappointing."

_Oh, he definitely doesn't know what to do with that_, she thought happily.

"Sometimes the old fashioned way is best," she purred, offering him a wink.

The smile that slid across his face had tasted death and Willa gripped the table behind her for courage, immediately reminded of her position. "You must realize I can destroy you with one blow and yet you offer me this advantage. I sense you have some silly plan, some misdirection suitable to your character, and though it delights me in a small way, I would hate to stumble further into it without pointing out the obvious. Your friends may not assist you in any manner. You would immediately suffer forfeit and death."

They stared at each other for a long minute until Willa gathered up some shredded bravado, stepped forward into her silly plan and held out her hand. "Okay, I'm good with that. Shake on it?"

-..-..-

"No, no, no, no…do NOT invite the god to shake your hand." Tony groaned. "Epically bad idea."

The shuttle would be landing a few floors down and they were all poised to assume strategic positioning. Banner had managed to stave off transformation and was now in dubious control.

"I think it's an excellent move," Steve replied. "Demonstrates honor and shows respect for your opponent -"

"Loki doesn't care about honor," Banner angrily interrupted. "He's going to cheat and she's going to be dead."

"You're still really focused on the dead part, Banner." Tony chided.

"He won't kill her until he knows we're watching," Romanoff snapped, eyeballing Tony. "It's really important that he not know we've arrived."

"Loki's alliances have grown strange of late," Thor's voice was new to the conversation, and Tony startled slightly as the large man appeared in formation next to him. "But it is to our advantage. I do not have time to fully explain, but he will not break the agreement. It would prove unthinkable."

"Right," Stark replied, "and Loki's never done _anything_ unthinkable. And thanks for finally joining the party, friend. No time like too late."

"I assure you," Thor replied, "he will not cheat."

Barton grunted. "I don't think that word means the same to him as it does to us."

-..-..-

Loki stared at her hand, then swiftly moved in front of her and grasped it tightly. Willa stiffened as he leaned in and pulled her even closer, ultimately whispering in her ear, "Are you afraid?" It was a replay of the alley and she felt slightly queasy.

She tilted her head to look up at him, heart pounding. "Do you want me to be?"

His other hand came up to brush lightly across the top of her bare shoulder and trace a path along her collarbone. Willa shivered, and Loki smiled, his eyes tracing the path of his fingers. "Your heart is beating like a caged bird's. With just a moment of magic I could free you from the fear and have you begging for release. You could die in ecstasy. Are you so sure you do not wish to be entertained?"

She could see desire in his eyes, and just a bit of otherworldly sheen that could be hypnotizing if she let it. Just let herself fall under his spell and not have to worry about maintaining this intricate charade. It would be so easy to choose release. She could finally stop weaving the complex web of lies that kept her alive and just let him absorb her soul. Ecstasy didn't sound so bad. She could just dream…

"_I'm going to save you._" The imagined whisper of a friend startled her out of the spell and Willa quickly blinked back to reality, trembling slightly. Oh, he was good.

Quickly, she reached up to grab Loki's wrist and stopped his hand from traveling further across her chest. He was so close she could almost taste him.

"Careful, Loki. No magic means no magic. Not even suggestion."

"You're going to spoil all my fun," he pouted. His other hand had found its way to caress her hip.

"You could call off this ridiculous contest and go bother other worlds," Willa suggested, growing irritated and trying not to recoil from his touch.

"You could concede," he purred, still so close. Still touching her.

She felt a flash of rage. "It's not in my nature."

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them and Loki's displeasure was swift. His hand wrapped around her throat and lifted her a few inches off the ground. Willa grabbed his wrist with both hands and tensed up; tried not to struggle. She would not give him that gratification this time.

"This is what it will feel like, Wilhemina, as I squeeze the life out of you. You have no hope of victory. No chance at survival." He was studying her intently and she stared back, his features beginning to blur. And then his grip loosened and she was set back on her feet, gasping. "But not yet, I think. I want to watch you squirm as I pick apart your disingenuous naivety until you are a raw nerve, and then I want your friends to watch you die. We should wait for them, do you not agree?"

Willa tried to take a deep breath when his fingers tightened slightly again and he reached up to her ear. "And if you are going to rob me of my magic, then I am going to rob you of yours."

Smiling cruelly, Loki ripped her earpiece off and crushed it in his fist, scratching her cheek in the process. He tossed the pieces on the floor as he released her with a flourished bow. "Now, truly, we are both stripped of illusions.

-..-..-

"That was, by far, the worst foreplay I've ever experienced," Tony declared hoarsely. "Anyone else need a drink or ten?"

The team was silent except for a few muttered curses. The jet had landed and they had stealthily advanced to their positions.

"Everyone just stay in your positions and keep your heads down." Steve said, "Especially you, Thor. I think seeing you would really aggravate him."

"My mere existence aggravates him." Thor rumbled. No one argued.

They all felt useless.


	10. Chapter 10

_**"In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him…**__**And then, in that very moment when I love them... I destroy them."**_

* * *

Willa concentrated on breathing. Not just because of the physical abuse, but because he somehow knew. She racked her brain as she tried to figure out where he would've gotten that little tidbit of information. It most definitely was not included in what she offered and everything else should've been wiped. Hands shaking, she smoothed her dress and gathered her composure. No matter, the endgame remained the same and maybe now that he thought he had the upper hand she would be able to reel him in a little more easily. Finally feeling like she had her wits again about her she looked up at him and then pointedly at the pieces of electronics on the floor.

"That was expensive." Her voice felt raspy. "And hardly magic."

She watched his face for his reaction, saw just a flash of puzzlement before he smiled. "I may have been misinformed, but I think not. More likely, your abilities exceed my expectations."

"That doesn't surprise me," Willa drawled. Any residual fear was now gone, having been replaced with anger, and she allowed past rage to chase any trace of hesitation from her veins. It was time to be someone she hadn't been in a long time and she was looking forward to it.

"You were right when you said I had a silly plan. Do you want to know what it was?" Loki nodded his interest and she continued, "A rudimentary delay tactic. I had just brewed myself a delicious, hot cup of coffee and was simply going to ask for the time to enjoy it before suffering insult. Just to make you wait. Unfortunately, you popped off like a teenager on prom night. I was hoping for a little more decorum." She rubbed her throat with one hand.

Loki actually looked slightly abashed. "My apologies."

Willa gestured to her coffee mug, sitting over near her laptop. "Now, if you wouldn't mind? I think I've earned it."

He stepped aside and offered her a conciliatory pass. "By all means. Enjoy your last beverage while we wait."

Giving him a wide berth, still cautious, Willa walked back to her laptop and picked up the mug with a long, slow sigh of relief. She took a sip from it and propped a hip on her chair, giving the god across from her another visual once-over.

"Are you going to wear that the whole time?" she finally asked.

"Wear what?"

"The helmet," she said. "With all the green going on, those long horns just kind of remind me of a grasshopper. It's a bit distracting."

Loki glanced down at himself, then back at her. "A grasshopper?"

"It's a bug," she explained, demonstrating its size with her fingers. "A small bug that hops around. It's got these long, curly antenna and it's usually green. Considered a pest. If you pull its legs off it'll lie there for a while and twitch before it dies. Rather pathetic to watch, actually."

Loki's gaze hardened as he stared at her for a minute, then relented, letting the helmet fade out of existence. "It would be a pity to be confused with an insignificant bug."

Willa cocked an eyebrow at him. "Downright humiliating," she agreed.

He flared his nostrils and smoothed his hair, then flashed her a tight grin. "How long will it take you to finish your beverage? You grow tiresome."

"So hasty to inflict death and destruction," Willa chided, with a glance at her watch. "I thought we'd have a little time to chat about your plans for the Earth once I'm dead and the Avengers are destroyed. I'm curious. I can't imagine you plan to reside here on this insignificant rock, so what did you have in mind? Exporting legions of human slaves? Stripping the planet of resources for sale? Vacation properties?"

Now he looked slightly perplexed. "You seem strangely cavalier about the potential annihilation of your species. Do you care nothing for them?" he asked.

Willa shrugged one shoulder. "Some things are inevitable, a matter of when, not if. Like any species, the human race was never meant to be a permanent resident of the planet. We're just a blip in the evolutionary record like everything else. Nothing is immortal; not me," she sipped her drink and winked at him. "Not you."

He sniffed, unbothered, now playing with one of the computer screens as he distracted himself from waiting. He raised his eyebrows at a 3-D schematic of one of Bruce's molecules with an interested hum before turning back to her.

"But my species _is_ superior," he replied. "Humans would never have even survived as long as they have without the routine intervention of a superior species. Mewling and helpless, unable to look beyond their petty tribal squabbles and superstitions; physically weak and intellectually shallow. It truly boggles the mind that they continue to exist at all, much less manage to nearly overrun the planet."

"If we are so distasteful, why bother?" She keyed a command into a keyboard across from her and the computer screens turned off. Loki pouted. "Just leave us alone and I'm sure we'll wipe ourselves out soon enough. Check back in a couple thousand years and we'll be nothing but a memory. No fuss no muss."

"That's not the point," he growled, his attention on her again.

Willa sighed sadly, "I know." Holding her mug with both hands now, she slowly began to walk along the back of one of the tables, keeping it between her and Loki. "I've been studying you, oh God of Denied Adoration. I know what you want. The point is to _rule_ us. To enslave us to your will and keep us beholden to your whim. That's what you said we wanted, right? Subjugation, the 'unspoken truth of humanity.'"

She reached the other end of the table and regarded him with a touch of pity. "You still see yourself as some sort of savior."

Loki had tracked her with his eyes, but hadn't moved. "And you see yourself as some sort of hero. Sadly, one of us is delusional."

Willa barked a laugh. "A hero?" she asked, surprised. "No. I would never be considered a hero. I don't possess that flavor of sentiment."

"And yet you stand here before me prepared to save your world." He was amused.

"Are you sure?" Half question, half challenge. "People like us, you and me, we aren't made to save worlds. We're made to burn them down and dance amidst the flames. Light it all on fire and snatch the prize right from underneath their noses during the chaos."

Loki graced her with a broad grin. "Oh, I like this part the best. Saccharine flattery with just a whiff of hopeful commiseration." He closed his eyes and made a production of smelling the air. "Mmmm…I do believe I even detect a hint of desperation."

She snorted. "I believe you know you have a reputation for pushing people to that point." He gave her a mocking bow and Willa speared him with an exasperated glare. "Careful, your arrogance is showing."

"Pure superiority, dear Willa," he replied. "Something you are undoubtedly unfamiliar with."

She shrugged. "Well, they do say that familiarity breeds contempt. Which is why you're back for your third go-round at us, after all."

He squinted in thought for a moment, then looked at her quizzically. "I am not actually sure where you're going with that."

Willa rested her elbows on the lab table with a sigh. "This one I _am_ familiar with." She slowly rotated the coffee mug in her hands, staring at her fingers. "I know what it's like, always coming in second. Always being the second thought, the second choice, sometimes actually forgotten or cast aside. Existing in the shadows of those deemed more deserving and having to scrape and bow for every favor or glimmer of attention." She glanced up at him and noted he had become still. Good. She was on the right track.

"I know the frustration that grows each time you're expected to just step aside even when you know that the glory should be yours. The contempt that smolders into a rage that burns right to the core, and you whisper to yourself, 'Why shouldn't I have it?'"

Loki's eyes glittered and his hands were loose fists. "Do not dare to mock me."

"I would not," she assured him, standing to face him openly. "Because I've played the same games that you play. I, also, learned that the only way to win is to deceive the very people I desired to please the most. The lies, the betrayals…each subsequently becoming more and more complex until you've woven yourself into such a web of delusion that you may even forget who you really are."

She smiled sadly and looked past him, out the windows. "But that doesn't matter, because your eye never strays from that prize. That thing that you desire above all else that continues to drive you, a need that unceasingly pulses through your veins. Day after day, year after year, defeat after defeat. Until one day. One day when it seems as though sweet victory is within your grasp and you look up to see…that it is all a smoldering ruin and there is nothing left."

She looked back at Loki and he stood motionless, his gaze boring into hers. "Do you still reach for it then?" she asked.

-..-..-

"That was…distressing," Bruce muttered

"I feel like I may have missed something. Somewhere." Tony added. "Anyone else feel left out the Willa Marshall loop or is it just me? And who's Wilhemina?"

"She's still stalling," Steve said, impatient.

"She was done stalling a while ago," Nat replied slowly, "This is the real game. I agree with Stark. I don't think we're going to like it."

-..-..-

Loki blinked and straightened slightly, then began to slowly clap. "Bravo! Bravo. Brilliant delivery, my dear. Did you practice in the mirror just for my benefit? Because I felt it," he pressed on hand to his chest, "I truly did. I am touched."

Willa glowered.

He grinned apologetically, "Do not look so wounded. You're not wrong, you're really not. But your brief life full of failures is nothing compared to millennia of denial of my birthright. I was born to rule!"

She raised an eyebrow, "You were left to die in the cold. I hardly think they had high hopes for you."

Loki reared back and Willa could feel the waves of anger wash off of him. She quickly began to retreat back around the table, clutching her mug to her chest. She glanced behind her and backed towards her desk. He began to slowly stalk her.

"At least I was not thrown out with the rubbish. Detritus for the rats to consume," he sneered.

Willa's hip bumped against the corner of her desk and she stopped. He _had_ done his homework. She didn't even know that information still existed.

"A deaf-mute born to a child prostitute in a war torn country. So very unfortunate," he continued, finally halting his advance a few feet in front of her.

She didn't take the insult personally and she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of appearing disturbed. "People make desperate choices in desperate times. It was fate." Keeping one eye on him, Willa leaned down to open a drawer and pulled out a thick packet of papers.

He seemed mildly nonplussed by her reaction and regarded her curiously before finally asking, "You truly cannot hear?"

She peered back. "Not a peep right now, not that it matters," she lied with a shrug. She had developed sophisticated integrated biotechnology for her handicap before she reached adolescence, and continued to improve on it over the years. She didn't miss much anymore, but decided to let him have his fun.

"I can lip read in six languages and am a keen observer of body language. So your little stunt earlier was just academic." Willa tossed the bound pack of papers onto the table next to him to change the subject and after a moment Loki looked down at it with a frown.

"What is this?"

"Now that we're done with threats and the obligatory insults to each other's parentage, I thought maybe we could get down to business. You didn't really think I was just going to roll over and die, did you?" she asked, grinning slyly.

"That was basically the plan," he mumbled, scratching his chin while he stared at the packet.

She tsked, "Sorry. I may not be extraordinary, but don't mistake me for benign. Let's negotiate."

-..-..-

"Negotiate!? Great…that's just great. Gonna sell us the hell out," Clint accused, still angry.

"I did not know she was deaf," Thor just about talked over him.

"I don't think any of us knew about most of this. Am I wrong?" Tony asked. "Jarvis, give me something good here. I want to know what's in those papers beyond bad fan-fic."

"That makes sense now," Bruce mused. "There was always something a little off."

"There's more than a little off," Tony offered, irked, "Your girlfriend is turning Bonnie to his Clyde, Banner."

"She's not my girlfriend," Bruce automatically replied. Natasha rolled her eyes.

Jarvis piped in, "Sir, I have no information regarding the content of the papers in Dr. Marshall's possession and no references to any outside research in my archives. As far as I am aware, Dr. Marshall has only ever requested information based upon the work she was tasked to complete by either you or Dr. Banner." Jarvis paused for a moment before continuing, "Also, I show that Willa Marshall was born in Missouri, the third child in a family of five. I am uncertain where Loki has obtained alternate information."

"I thought she was a military brat who was born in Germany," Clint replied.

"She told me she grew up in Florida," Nat added.

"You secretive minx," Tony murmured, "Who are you?"

"I don't like it," Steve said, sounding tense. "At this point I'm not entirely sure I trust she's on our side. It seems like she's been lying to all of us for some time now."

"I've been lying since I was three," Natasha drawled. "For some of us it's a means of survival, not a character flaw. You seem to trust _me_ just fine."

"_I_ don't trust you," Clint muttered with a grin.

"You're an ass," Nat replied.

-..-..-

"Negotiate?" Loki looked surprised and annoyed at the same time. Then he chuckled with the pure ridiculousness of the situation. "I cannot imagine what you could possibly offer me that would dissuade me from my purpose."

Willa held up one hand, "Hear me out. I do believe you'll find it has merit." She gestured with the coffee mug still held in the other hand. "Plus, still a little more coffee left."

He thrust out his lower jaw with an over exaggerated sigh, too curious to reject the offer. "If you must."

"What you see before you," Willa pointed at the packet, excited now, "is the culmination of my life's work for the past twenty years. It is the code, the operational schematics, and the executables for M.A.U.D.E."

"Maude?"

"Molecular Adhesion Unwrapping Device…" Willa did a little twirl in front of her desk, "…Extraordinaire." She grinned, flouncing her skirt. "I added the Extraordinaire. Makes it sound fancy."

"Lovely." He looked unimpressed.

Willa leaned back on her desk, comfortable in her former self. "Contrary to popular belief, Stark and Banner aren't the only geniuses in this little group. I don't fret about dick size, so I don't need a shiny red rocket suit or super powers for validation of my work. I like to fly under the radar. I specialize in neurosensory modification and biological weapons development. And I tend to think distressingly outside the box. I was invited to join this little band of global patriots back about the time you first decided that the Earth was your personal windmill." She paused and tapped her finger beside her nose. "That's right, you already know all of this. I believe I sent you on that chase."

His glares were becoming more deadly as he realized the set up, but now he wanted to know what was in the box, so to speak. He had to ride it out.

"Please, prattle on needlessly," he hissed. "It should only take one or two minutes to kill you so we've got the time."

"One or two minutes? That long?" she replied sarcastically.

He smirked cruelly, "Possibly slightly longer, depending upon how long I watch you twitch."

Willa actually smiled. Raised her cup in a slight toast. "Nice. That was nice. Well done."

Loki gave a slight nod. "You were saying?"

"Cliff's Notes version for those who only had bits of the story," she said with a wink. "Sociopathic tendencies in my youth, frighteningly steep learning curve, and a powerful motivation to explore the modification of the human nervous system and I soon found myself valuable to a circle of people some would deem…unsavory. They had what I needed and I helped them get rich. Then I helped myself to their research and branched out on my own. Designer weapons never go out of style. Years of lucrative deals later and one of my biological modifications was used in the wrong place at the wrong time and the next thing you know I'm sitting in an interrogation room with Nick Fury." Willa saw Loki grimace. "I see you remember him.

"Threats became compromises became promises, and a few years later I'm standing in a laboratory with equipment I never could've imagined having access to. With one caveat; no more unsanctioned biological weaponry. You see, I made the ethics boards very nervous. My ideas strayed far beyond their comfort levels and they had seen what I could create. So they thought to shut me down. But you and I both know, eyes always on the prize, right?" She sipped the last dregs of coffee. "And now for the part no one knows.

"I've worked off the grid on an idea I had been formulating for a long time. Paper and pencil, encrypted accounts, piggybacking test runs onto other scientist's experiments. It's been tedious, but it finally played out. And over the last couple of years, with the most superior technologies and minds at my disposal, I finally did it." She smiled, gesturing again to the packet.

"M.A.U.D.E." Loki stated confirmation.

Willa nodded proudly.

"So," he asked, becoming impatient, "what is it?"

"Oh, right, you probably want to know," she chuckled. "It's the biological equivalent of an EMP. Electromagnetic pulse; an intense burst of energy that short circuits anything on the target frequency and shuts it down. Except M.A.U.D.E. is a bit more destructive. She doesn't short circuit, she actually unravels the molecular bonds in carbon molecules, which, in turn, lyses all the cell structure in most organic material within range."

Loki looked unsure so Willa clarified. "Plants, animals, humans…carbon based gods…all reduced to a little quivering pile of goo. No defense. Quick and thorough." She frowned and gazed at the ceiling in thought for a moment. "I'm not sure if it's painless."

He glanced over at the packet, then settled his gaze back on her but remained silent. Thinking.

She continued, "The modification of the pulse bio-frequencies was incredibly difficult, but once I figured that out everything fell into place. And the triggering mechanism is surprisingly simple and fits into a very small payload with a resulting blast radius of about a half kilometer. I did actually consider making it marketable at one point, so it can be modified to trigger on a genetic tracer. Usually a DNA signature. So you wouldn't have to wipe out all living things in the neighborhood, just the ones you really didn't like." She winked.

Loki was utterly still and Willa's gut roiled. She'd rather just end this right now, but she promised herself she'd give him a chance. A chance at redemption. He still needed a little push.

"If someone were resourceful, it wouldn't take long to mass produce them. If they had all the information." Willa said, watching Loki carefully, then glancing over at the papers. "Indiscriminate and catastrophic damage."

He finally spoke, intense and wary, now staring again at the packet as if it would jump off the table. "You are offering it to me?"

"In a way," she replied. "It's what I'm willing to give up to make this a non-zero-sum game, instead of mutual annihilation."

He gaze shot back over to her with a tinge of confusion. "Mutual annihilation?" he asked.

Willa's lips twitched into a half smile and she twisted the handle on her coffee cup and pushed the lever into the container, holding it in place. A small LED on the outside of the cup began to blink a slow, green rhythm. Loki looked suspicious and mildly alarmed.

"It's a very small payload, Loki. Fits in the palm of your hand." She wiggled the cup. "And this one has a nifty dead man's switch. I'm assuming you're familiar with_ that_ term." Her voice felt a bit wobbly. She truly didn't think she'd get this far.

He backed up a few steps and she smiled, "Running away?"

With a darkening expression he halted his retreat. Willa took advantage of his recovering silence.

"In a non-zero-sum game each side has to give something up in order to win. And since this is a duel, the real prize is life. You give up your crusade to conquer the planet; I give up an exquisite weapon of mass destruction. We both live." She gestured towards the packet. "Take M.A.U.D.E. I honestly don't care what you do with it. It's your consolation prize."

He spoke through gritted teeth, breathing shallowly. "You think you have won?"

"I won twenty minutes ago. I've chosen to give you an exit strategy."

He showed her all the signs of thinking about a swift attack, and as his shoulders hunched slightly she stood very straight and raised the mug slightly with a warning, "Ah ah…pile of goo."

-..-..-

"Don't be a fool, brother!" Thor had moved to stand in front of one of the balcony windows, one hand pressing against the glass.

"You were right, Romanov, I don't like this game," Clint was agitated. "I don't see how anyone is winning here."

"Banner?" Tony asked softly. "Does the name Mina Pham mean anything to you? Wilhemina Pham? Because it sure scares the hell out of me."

There was no reply and Tony asked again, worried. "Bruce? Buddy? C'mon, back me up here."

"There's no way," Bruce sounded slightly stunned. "I mean, they said she died in Abu Ghraib…unless Fury-"

"Crap," Tony snapped. "Jarvis, if there's anyone in the building, get them out. Tax some of my overpriced security team to help you. Do _not_ alert the authorities. We don't need gawkers."

"What should I tell them is the nature of the emergency?" Jarvis asked.

"A potential act of a god," Stark drawled.

-..-..-

The tense moment stretched out long between them and Willa finally realized what it must feel like to be a snake charmer; intently watching the dangerously beautiful creature in the cage before you. Ready to react in a moment to its next move, trying to predict its thoughts. Its gaze mesmerizing and calculating at the same time.

"Such a dilemma you find yourself in, Loki Laufeyson," she purred. "It pains you to think this puny human has put you in such a spot, and yet, here you are. Do you believe that I will destroy us both? Or do you call my bluff?" Her anger rose again in her chest. "I almost hope you do."

He finally spoke, low and furious. "You ungrateful, spineless curr. I come to you with an honorable offer, extend to you a stay of execution based upon a feeble excuse, and you repay me with this deceit? This is a blatant violation of our agreement."

Willa barked a laugh. "An honorable offer? Is that what they're calling slaughter behind the front lines now? Oh, no, I _know_ what you came here to do, you miserable creature. Mine's the only offer on the table now, and I didn't sign a contract."

She watched him struggle to maintain control and it was mesmerizing. So much violence barely contained beneath the surface that he fairly shimmered with unreleased magic. His posture shifted slightly as he changed tactics.

"You would so carelessly snuff the life out of so many, including your darling Avengers?" Loki asked, his expression scolding. "I know they have arrived. So many innocent people who would needlessly die because of your foolish hope to win. Do they know you've sentenced them to death? My dear girl, your tragic sacrifice would only be a headline directing blame at the very people you are trying to save."

He wielded that knife expertly and she felt a deep stab of conscience for a life she left behind. There were plenty of souls waiting for her in Hell, but she didn't have the luxury of torturing herself before she got there. He would not manipulate her.

"Oh, you're right," she agreed, "there would be hundreds of casualties, maybe even thousands. I thought about that, I did. Kept me up for a night or two." She affected deep concern, then shook her head at him. "And sometimes we have to sacrifice the ones we love for the greater good, but this isn't one of those times. I really only have one target, so this device is modified. It will only affect objects marked with my DNA."

She watched him work it out; the handshake, his hands on her bare skin, the rough removal of her ear piece…It's possible he became a half shade paler, but it was hard to tell.

"It's all over you, my friend. You're a forensic delight right now."

Willa took two steps closer and channeled her wrath towards him. "You know what the very best part is? The very best part is that you'll die here all…alone. After all your posturing and grandiose proclamations of victory, after once again thinking you would stand upon the podium, you're going to pass into oblivion with no one to notice. No one will know you were here and no one will know what happened. There will be no parades, no memorial services, no commemorative statues in your honor. You will simply cease to be. Only a memory for a few who will soon forget. And the universe? Well, those who knew of your many defeats will just assume you curled up somewhere and died in shame. Forgotten. Insignificant. Like a bug."

Loki had become a seething, looming presence, even without moving any closer. She stayed the course, mug held securely in her now sweaty hands. Her eyes were burning and she blinked, feeling a tear graze her nose.

"'Lay these bones in an unworthy urn. Tombless, with no remembrance over them,'" she spat, the quote making his eye twitch. "There is nothing left, Loki. Are you still going to reach for it?"

"You are weak," he snarled.

"No," she whispered. She had _never_ been weak.

"Unlike you, I don't lack _conviction_." She glanced over at the far windows behind him with a nod. "Say goodbye to your brother."

He stiffened and turned, staring at Thor, who was slowly shaking his head in a silent plea. Willa held her breath until he jerked around to look at her again.

She calmly began to count down, "Ten, nine, eight…"

He seemed made of stone and she had a momentarily flash of aching sadness. It would've been nice to have gotten to say goodbye.

"…seven, six, five…" Thor struck his fist against the glass and Loki flinched.

"...four, three, two, -"

"Stop!" Loki demanded, breathing heavily and boring holes through her with his gaze. He let the silence stretch for almost too long.

"I concede," he choked out.

"What?" she asked, genuinely surprised. She tightened her grip on the cup, ready for a trick.

"I concede." He made sure to mouth the word slowly and carefully, his look of disgust revealing its taste as he leaned forward slightly.

"I will not say you have won, you sniveling little thief, but I will take this thing that you offer me and I will use it to destroy world after world." Willa could feel the power radiating off of him and his expression was terrifying. "And I assure you, you will know of it. Every life I take will be because of you, every heart that stops beating, every cry of anguish will be on your conscience. It will be my greatest pleasure to bring you pain, Willa Marshall, and I _will_ find a way to come for you."

She simply stared back, still shocked. This was so unexpected that she hadn't prepared for what to feel. Her mind cast about for the proper response, but there were no emotions left to reach for other than dismissal. And so she offered only that.

"Goodbye, Loki."

He whirled away and snatched up the papers on the table as the air around him began to shimmer and pulse. Willa stepped back a few paces to avoid the disturbance and watched him glare at her through the tumult of some alien portal's magic until suddenly, he was gone. A slight haze of ozone the only reminder of his presence.


	11. Chapter 11

"_**Sometimes lies were more dependable than the truth."**_

* * *

She just stood there and watched the empty space in front of her as her mind grappled with the fact that she had actually won. His threats and promises tumbled about in her head for a few moments until her subconscious finally decided to snatch them and tuck them down into a safe corner to think about later. The here and now was going to become very interesting very quickly. The lights in the lab flickered ever so slightly, and Willa noticed a flurry of movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head to see Bruce and Natasha skid to a stop just inside the doors. They looked more than wary.

"I didn't expect that," Willa said, still slightly shocked. Not entirely sure what to do next.

Bruce hesitantly moved towards her and Willa quickly held up one hand and motioned with the mug in the other. "Wait. Live device. Give me a minute."

She walked around a few tables towards the sinks in the back of the lab, vaguely noting the arrival of the other members of the team, and twisted the lid of the mug one full turn to deactivate the trigger. Another full turn to break the capsule of acid inside the device which rendered the contents inert. Her hands started to tremble…everyone was safe.

"Jarvis, I'm assuming you've found your way back in," she said, placing the mug inside a clunky looking receptacle. "Incinerate the contents of the trash compactor please. Now." She needed to make sure it was completely destroyed and didn't think she had the current mental acuity to correctly program it herself. The sequence of colored lights on the screen assured her the AI had complied. At least he wasn't holding a grudge.

In that moment, all the stress, the anger, the anxiety, it all just drained out of her in a huge rush of relief and she stumbled to the side as her legs buckled. She flung out an arm on reflex and knocked over a rack of goggles and some metal basins as she landed on her ass next to the sink, trying to blink away a grey fog before her eyes. The floor vibrated and suddenly there were hands on her.

"It's okay," she mumbled, batting at them. "The adrenaline's just worn off. I need a chair."

The grey turned to black.

_-..-..-..-..-..-_

She came to exactly where she had asked to be; in a chair. A recliner, to be more specific, with her feet raised up and the rest of her tilted slightly backwards so she blinked back to reality with Bruce's concerned face staring down at her. He had one hand wrapped loosely around her wrist, taking her pulse.

"Welcome back," he said warily.

Apparently satisfied with her well-being, he eased back to sit on the end of the couch nearby, expression still moderately grim. In fact, as Willa tilted her head to survey the room, it was the same expression worn by all the Avengers. All gathered on the couches and chairs in the lounge below the lab…all staring at her. She felt like she had been to this party before, and it hadn't ended well.

She scanned each of their faces, looking for a glimmer of something less gloomy and finally settled on Tony, sitting across from Bruce. He had shed the suit and helped himself to a drink. Raising one eyebrow, he extended his arm towards her, fist clenched, and she frowned, not understanding until he flipped his hand over and opened his fingers. An earpiece rested on his palm. She looked back up at him quickly, saw just a hint of amusement in his gaze and felt the tension between her shoulders ease a bit.

"Thanks," she acknowledged the olive branch, "but I don't need it." She pushed herself up into a more dignified position and took a deep breath while deciding on the lies. Might as well start with the big one.

"I'm not who you think I am," she stared at Bruce first, then slid her gaze over to Stark. They would've put the pieces of the story together the most quickly, and she assumed they had somehow heard the exchange with Loki considering the aura of displeasure in the room.

"You're giving Janus a run for his money at the moment, sweetheart," Tony drawled, sipping his drink. "May have been safer to send you along with Loki."

Willa shuddered slightly, taking a bottle of water offered by Bruce. He was still in rescue mode. It was cool and delicious and it gave her a moment to finish resetting the total body reboot she had just suffered.

"My name _is_ Wilhemina," she started, "but my last name is Huynh. Mina and I were orphans in the same institution at the same time. They gave a number of the girls the same name. Less to remember, I guess. I think they drew our last names out of a jar. It doesn't really matter." She sipped her water again, holding all their interest.

"Mina was my best friend all through childhood. We shared everything. Even intellect, though our interests diverged in adolescence. I was seduced into the world of microtechnology and she fell down the rabbit hole of genetic modification. But we had to plans to make millions with our combined skills, and she approached me with the idea of M.A.U.D.E. when we were in our late teens."

This wasn't the first time Willa had told this story. She was kind of hoping it would be the last. All eyes in the room remained on her. "I decided to step into legitimate product development in order to advance my schooling. Mina…," Willa paused and looked at the floor, adding the appropriate hesitation. "Well, I think some of you know where Mina transitioned to."

Willa shrugged and finished her water. "I never saw her again, though I kept an ear to the ground just in case I could find out if she was still alive. I heard stories. I took the pieces of data I could find by mining numerous sources and put together a feasible virtual personnel file for Loki to find."

Now she looked pointedly at Steve. "Mina and Loki are so similar…so driven by the same need, and I recognized that look in his eye. I knew what he wanted. I couldn't convince you of his intent and I was desperate. I had to do something." Everyone shifted in their chairs, slightly uncomfortable.

"And it worked," she concluded, looking back at Bruce now, gauging his mood. "He took the bait. You were there for the rest."

Steve leaned forward in his chair with concern. "You gave him a powerful weapon. I'm not exactly sure how that…_works_…for us."

"M.A.U.D.E. is just a young girl's musing," she said reassuringly, kind smile in place. She leaned forward to meet his pose. "I gave him a Vietnamese translation of the Kama Sutra, accompanied with the coding and schematics for a self-replicating holographic video suite." Tony's eyes opened wider and Bruce made a face while rubbing at his temples. Willa sat back and raised her eyebrows, fingers steepled together for the final blow. "So he can properly go fuck himself."

Steve blushed, Nat's mouth pursed in a silent 'oh!' and Clint just about melted. "You're my hero!" he gushed. Even Thor looked slightly amused as he generally pouted in the back.

Willa crinkled her nose at Barton. "Well, actually, I'm probably a dead man walking, but it should take him a while to regroup, so…"

The momentum was in her favor so she levered out of the chair to stretch her back, Bruce rising to hover next to her. Looking over at Tony she asked, "I believe I once heard a story about saving the world and shawarma?"

He was still studying her shrewdly, but then pursed his lips in thought and nodded agreement. "World saved. We're all still alive. Seems a perfect time for a savory treat." He set his empty glass on the table and stood with a grin. "Shawarma it is."

"Fantastic," she replied, rubbing her hands together, "I'm starving. Let's eat!" She was totally driving them all on shock and awe and hoping the release of weeks of tension would allow their psyches to just go with the flow. People believed what they wanted to believe when presented with a viable scenario and life still in their veins.

_-..-..-..-..-..-_

An hour later, around a mouthful of dough, humming in pleasure, Barton asked her, "What if he would've called your bluff?"

Willa assessed him as she finished chewing a bite. "Mmmm," she dabbed her mouth with a napkin. "You misunderstand. I wasn't bluffing."

Three other people stopped chewing and stared with Clint.

"Nat and Bruce were there," she continued, gesturing at those two with the rest of her sandwich. "I had a live device, but it was just a basic IED. Probably would've worked, given his proximity, but he needed to think it was something much more."

Barton slowly set down his meal. "But, then…"

Willa winked at him. "Blaze of glory, my friend. Blaze of glory."

_-..-..-..-..-..-_

Willa padded down the dimly lit, silent hallway, just slightly chilly in her shorts and tank top. She had showered after their big dinner, taking the time to enjoy the hot water and steam while she sorted through possibilities. It was too soon to decide on drastic changes, but there was one thing she kept coming back to; one missed chance was an accident…two would be a tragedy. She was alive. No better time to celebrate.

She ducked into the small alcove at her destination and knocked on the door, waiting halfway impatiently. There was a long minute and muted click before it swung open and Banner appeared, looking tired but not yet sleepy. His hair was still damp from his own shower, t-shirt and pajama pants rumpled, and Willa smiled. Adorkasexy.

She leaned one shoulder against the wall, close enough to touch him if she wanted to. "Liar," she accused, her eyes glittering amusement.

He studied her for a moment, noting the outfit and her bare feet, then placed his hand on the doorframe just above her head. Almost relaxed. "I'm probably the only one who _didn't_ win that title today," he teased.

Willa inched a little closer. She could smell his shower gel and shampoo. "You were angry for at least a good forty five minutes today and we didn't have to leash you." She boldly fiddled with the bottom edge of his t-shirt and he watched her fingers. "I'm thinking someone has a little more control than he lets on."

For being a fairly geeky scientist and mainly anti-social, he caught on fairly quickly. He leaned in even closer and reached out to trace the scratch on her cheek, gaze liquid and fingertips lingering on her jawbone. "I might still be a little angry," he suggested, testing his theory.

She hummed and rested the palm of her hand on his chest, slowly letting her fingers crab around to lightly grip his side as he continued his caress down onto her neck.

"I don't think Stark should lose anymore sleep," she murmured mischievously, studying his reaction. "The poor man needs some answers."

Bruce grinned lopsidedly and snagged her to him. "Get in here."

_-..-..-..-..-..-_

The long day had slid into late hours of the night when Stark ambled into the lounge and over to the bar. He played bartender to one and poured himself a couple more fingers of a maple scotch. Enjoying its aroma, he leaned his elbows on the low lighted bar and spoke to the shadows.

"Jarvis analyzed the contents of the incinerator before he toasted it." He rubbed at a moisture ring with a napkin. "The profile was not like any IED I've ever seen, and I literally have the market on explosive devices."

Romanoff materialized into the light and quietly approached one of the stools. "So she did it then." Sipping from her straw in her iced tea, the assassin thought a minute. "Do you think he knows?"

Stark huffed and swirled his drink. "Not even Nick Fury gets that lucky. Of course he knows. At least he knows the _who_. I doubt he's in any way aware of M.A.U.D.E." He tossed back more than half the dark amber liquid. "If I had something like that in my back pocket I wouldn't tell him either."

"So…" Natasha looked up at him expectantly after a long moment, "is this going to be a problem?"


	12. Chapter 12

\- _Epilogue_-

* * *

Willa cradled her cup of coffee in her hands, enjoying its heat as she relaxed back into the chair at the café. It was the first truly chilly day of the season and she had her pick of tables under the cloudy skies, though she was grateful for the thicker fleece jacket and her jeans. The trees wore their autumn leaves proudly and she took a moment to just appreciate the little explosions of color along the avenue. Once the waitress brought her an extra napkin and her muffin, Willa set down the cup and cracked open her novel while she savored the first bite. Another good day in a series of good days.

The minute they sat down, she knew.

They waved the server over to order their own drinks and sat in silence as they waited. Willa ignored them, continuing to read her book and pick at her muffin. Romanoff was as still as a statue. Tony fussed with the edges of his coat. Cups and spoons were delivered and Willa let him off the hook.

"I almost thought I overestimated you," she drawled, still reading.

Nat quirked an eyebrow at Stark. "Told you."

Tony rolled his eyes and picked up his drink, turning his gaze on Willa as he slowly stirred in some sugar. "I was thinking -"

"You know my opinion on that statement," Willa interrupted, deliberately folding over a page to mark her place and setting her book aside, watching him now. Amused at his attempt to be casual about the confrontation.

He recovered quickly. "I was thinking that I'd really like to see your work on the configuration of that selective triggering mechanism, Dr. Kamikaze." He popped an eyebrow and shifted in his seat, waiting expectantly. It may have been a peace offering…or it could be a warning.

Willa sipped at her coffee. She had mentally debated her response to this very question, plus others, over the past two weeks. It was only a matter of time before they were asked of her. Never one to completely throw caution to the wind, she nevertheless had a gut feeling the audience before her already knew most of the answers. They were now just performing a risk assessment so she might as well tidy up the story for them.

"I'm going to have to disappoint you, professor," she confessed. "No one's been able to achieve a genetically configured triggering mechanism. I guess I misspoke."

Tony cleared his throat and gently placed his cup back on the saucer while Natasha frowned, clearly thinking it through. Willa helped them out. This didn't need to drag on.

"It would've been a forensic cleanup rivaling 9-11," she stated, looking past them to watch a very tall man walk a very tiny dog. The cityscape was always good for some amusement.

"Wow," Natasha murmured, halfway impressed, halfway uncomfortable. Tony blinked rapidly as he decided on an emotion and subsequent tactic.

"M.A.U.D.E.?" he asked, including a million questions into one. Willa waited for his gaze to stop darting around the café and settle on her.

"Is mine," she responded, staring at him flatly. "I didn't share it. I won't share it." A piece of muffin had escaped the plate and she plucked it off the table to nibble on, looking back up at Stark to clarify. "Yet."

His gaze shifted away quickly with her answer, calculating options, then he looked back to eye her muffin. If Natasha hadn't been breathing, you wouldn't even know she was there.

"It's the only thing I have that Fury doesn't know about," Willa concluded, wiping her fingers on her napkin.

Her statement carried an underlying warning. An unspoken agreement that the people sitting across from her could either reject or accept in this moment. Willa slowly pushed the muffin over to Stark. He flashed a grin, then picked up a fork to stab at it.

"Seems fair," he conceded, checking for Nat's approval with a glance. She just looked vaguely bored. Sensing agreement, Stark popped the forkful of muffin in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. Willa realized she was relieved. The alternate outcome to this little discussion would've been far more inconvenient.

"So…I wonder how long it'll take Reindeer Games to figure out a way back?" Tony mused after a minute, brushing some crumbs off his lap. He had that cocky little grin on his face that Willa had somehow grown fond of.

She laughed and finished off the last of her coffee, stuffed her book in her bag and stood. "I'm not that easy to kill, Stark," she teased. "You're stuck with me."

Willa turned and walked away with a spring in her step, feeling a bit freer than usual as she heard Nat admonish Tony.

"She left us the check."

_..- the end -.._

* * *

**A/N: A millions thanks to all who read and enjoyed the story! I had such an amazingly fun time writing it (especially writing Loki. His language and delivery is just so delightful to wrap my head around)**

**Reviews are love, and I'd really enjoy hearing what you thought, so please take a minute to reply :D :D**

**All chapter heading quotes are from Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.**

**One of the best novels I've ever read.**


End file.
